


Wiping Off the Dust

by dentalfloss



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: ALL THE ANGST, Abduction, BAMF!all around (but mostly Clint…and Tony), Clint Barton is a Little Shit, Feels, Friendship, Humour, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Child Abuse, Team, Trust Issues, Violence, character de-ageing (belly flopped all over this bandwagon finally), coarse language, hugging., physical abuse of a minor, physical abuse of adult
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-04-06
Packaged: 2018-01-17 04:16:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 72,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1373596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dentalfloss/pseuds/dentalfloss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teenaged Clint, it turns out, is a little shit.</p><p>Naturally this makes him Tony’s new favourite person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> An enormous THANK YOU to mrasaki and allochthon for their excellent advice and editing savvy! Their help made this story much smoother than it was!!! Also thanks to the folk in FEELS chat, you know who you are ;)
> 
> I have been plugging away at this on and off for over a year now, and am quite pleased that I’m finally posting!! As promised ;)
> 
> Enjoy.

After an obscene number of tests, and fending off anxious teammates, the SHIELD doctors grudgingly judged Clint to be around twelve years old. They made it very clear, however, that seeing as Clint appeared to have been reverted to his actual physical state of that time, there was a margin for error.

Dr. Amsterdam had taken to looking at Clint with a forlorn frown when he believed nobody was watching, and consulted his medical notes on Clint's history with a deep sigh. It didn't take a genius to figure out that what was in the notes didn't match up to the wiry, far too thin kid lying hunkered under pale sheets before them.

They'd hooked him up to an IV filled with nutrients, though they insisted that he wasn't in any danger physically. It was just a precaution. His vitals were strong enough that they didn't need to hook him to a monitor; there were no signs of immediate injuries that needed to be dealt with, and nothing foreign in his blood or brain scans.

After spying the doctor's frown, and watching the sleeping boy for a long moment, Steve had left the room quietly. He understood the implications of not enough food while growing up; of struggling to make ends meet and make meals stretch. He returned ten minutes later with what appeared to be half the staff room's vending machine, and deposited it all on Clint's bedside table. The colourful wrappers crackled loudly as Steve made sure the junk food didn't fall off the limited surface. Nobody commented and Steve resumed his quiet watch by the door.

They waited a long while for Clint to wake up. Then they waited some more, listening to the Doctor's quiet assurances that the transformation, while apparently flawless, just took a lot of energy and Clint needed the rest. Eventually they had to leave for food and other duties and decided on standing watch in shifts, because nobody wanted Clint to wake up alone. Pairing up with natural alacrity, Bruce and Tony stayed behind for first watch and continued to discuss potential causes and solutions to this 'situation.'

Not five minutes after the rest of the team filed out of the room, Clint awoke.

The timing was suspicious.

It was even more so when he went fromsleeping to swiftly rolling off the bed. He landed near-silently on the floor, but neither man could miss the movement from less than five feet away and they jumped to their feet in reaction. That was as far as they got before being beaned ruthlessly in the face. With chocolate bars. Clint went for the eyes, and he didn't miss. They missed him though, as he swiftly fled the room while Tony tried to blink his vision back and Bruce struggled to move around Tony and the chairs while straightening his glasses.

The startled yells of medical personnel and the security agents on duty reached their ears. After scrambling out of the private room they didn't expect to discover that Clint had already managed to disappear.

"That little shit," Tony muttered, impressed as he wiped at reactive tears still crowding his eyes, but he didn't add anything more and moved steadily from SHIELD's medical wing as Bruce relayed Clint's escape to the team.

The building's fire alarm screeched through the air thirty seconds later. It was swiftly replaced with a general alarm and the code for an 'escaped patient, potential hostile.'

They caught him in the lobby of the building, thirty feet from the front door that he been about to casually stroll through. Though 'caught' could be argued down to 'cornered' as he was backed into the tall information desk and surrounded. Tony and Bruce, with Steve and Thor not far behind, barged into the large space to see five agents circled loosely around Clint, their weapons drawn and trained on him.

Clint didn't seem impressed by the guns but he wasn't moving, frozen to his spot as he tried to stare the agents down. Considering he was all of twelve years old, he was too damn good at it.

"Get your hands up where we can see them and lie down on the ground, Barton," a tall, copper haired Agent ordered.

Clint blinked, his attention rapidly shifting about the room before settling back on the armed men before him. Then he smiled, charming, wide and innocent. The thing was, Clint didn't seem to realize that the people here _knew_ him, beyond just his name. Agents were trained in recognizing certain characteristics of SHIELD's more prominent agents, the ones that were the most dangerous, so they could spot discrepancies. So they could assess potential threats.

They knew that there was nothing that could be trusted in _that_ smile. The last time Tony had seen Clint pull it out he had chased it with the death of seven AIM mercenaries. While handcuffed.

Tony hadn't realized Clint had learned that smile so young.

"I will shoot you, kid." The copper headed agent warned when Clint didn't follow his direction. There was no mistaking his honesty despite the fact that he obviously didn't want to.

"You'd shoot an innocent kid?" Clint lost his smile, eyes going wide and worried and he looked around the room, pleading. "All of you would let him do that? I didn't do anything to you, I just want to go home." More than a few of the people flooding the room seemed to soften at his pleading, one of the five agents with their weapons drawn even lowered his gun. It was not Tony's imagination when Clint's attention very briefly cut to that agent. Sensing weakness.

"I don't want to, but until you stand down I will not hesitate to pull the trigger," the lead agent stated, just as firm, and Tony made a note to not mess with the guy in the future. Apparently he could read bullshit in its most innocent of forms.

Mini-Clint seemed to get that his innocent act wasn't going to fly, because a moment later the _smile_ was back, a little sharper this time. Tony could read the desperation in it now, the way Clint was trying so hard not to show his fear. Having five guns pointed at any sane individual would have them trembling in panic, but Clint was trying to act like this happened to him all the time.

Maybe it did.

Tony frowned.

"You _could_ pull the trigger," Clint agreed softly, "but then you'll also be dead, and that will really screw up your day. Am I right?"

"My gun is pointed right at you," the agent pointed out, unwavering.

"Then I guess that almost gives you a fighting chance," the kid smirked, goading, careless. His gaze was steady though, unnaturally focused for a kid his age, and it was clear that he at least believed that he was telling the truth.

"Lower your weapons," Natasha ordered as she appeared out of nowhere, and as one the guards collectively calmed. Hell, even Tony found himself relaxing slightly now that she was here, because if anyone could handle Clint Barton when he was…not himself, it was his partner. Clint's gaze tracked her immediately, instinctively understanding that she was the dominant threat in the room now, but otherwise he didn't move. "Clear out," she ordered, and like magic the only people left in the lobby were their team and the head security guard.

"Wow," Clint drawled with his too young voice, "I bet you're the life of the party," with a cocky grin that wasn't as confident as the Clint Tony knew, but definitely had his familiar cheekiness.

"Want to tell us why you're in such a hurry to leave?" Natasha inquired, arms open by her sides and as non-threatening as she ever got.

"Felt like getting some fresh air. That wasn't a crime last I checked," Clint explained easily.

"Try again, this time with the truth," she narrowed her eyes but Clint seemed unaffected as he quickly glanced over to where Tony stood with Bruce, Thor, and Steve crowded around him. His eyes lingered on Tony a moment longer than the others, but ultimately he didn't appear impressed as he refocused on Natasha.

"Wasn't sure if you had my insurance info," he shrugged like it was no big deal, "figured I'd head home and grab it for you."

His delivery was smooth, and if it hadn't been built on such blatant bullshit it might have even been believable. Clint was smirking again. Natasha gave him a hard look.

"Your parents were killed when you were four." Tony started at her cold words.

"Hey now-" Bruce took a half step forward in protest but it died a quick death when Natasha held up a hand, demanding compliance. Clint didn't so much as twitch in response.

"You resided in a state home until you and your older brother Barney ran away to Carson's circus and fell off the grid. You were ten years old. Duquesne took you on as an apprentice not long after that and you've been with them since."

There was a very pointed moment of silence. Clint dropped what was left of his 'nice kid' act all together and glared.

"You gonna tell me my favourite colour next?" he snarled as much as a puppy could. A vicious, sharp-toothed, rabid little puppy.

"Purple," she answered without hesitation, "but you basically like anything that's bright and bold."

"You know, now that I think about it, this doesn't look like any hospital I've ever seen." Ignoring her answer, Clint cut a sharp look back to Tony, eyeing him slowly before taking the rest of them in once more. It was creepy as hell coming from a ten year old. "And you don't look like doctors."

"Well, he's a doctor," Tony couldn't resist clarifying, hooking a thumb at Bruce. "What?" he asked defensively when Natasha gave him a warning look. "Are we not allowed to be proud of our resident labcoat?"

"Now's not the time, Tony," Steve ordered softly and normally Tony might have more to say, but Clint was eyeing them with a decidedly shifty countenance, so he settled for an eye roll and crossed his arms expectantly.

"How do you know so much about me?" The kid focused again on Natasha. _How,_ not _who are you_. His gaze drifted briefly over her shoulder to the front doors and then seemed to do a quick circuit of the walls and lobby furniture before settling expectantly on her once more.

"We have a file with your history. You told me about the colour."

"Yeah, you and everyone who's ever seen one of my shows could know about the colour thing, and I've never seen you before waking up here. I'd _remember_."

"You hate popcorn," she countered.

"Now that is a lie," Tony blurted, because he'd seen Clint eat it on movie nights whenever someone shoved the bowl in his hands. Natasha and Clint ignored the outburst, intent on their stare down.

"When you were eight you rescued a robin that had fallen from its nest," she pressed her lips together briefly, but Tony didn't know what that meant. "You named it Sky."

"Who are you?" Clint asked finally, and now his voice was shaking. He was beginning to look more like the scared kid he should be considering what was happening to him. "Is this a test?"

Tony buried the rising unease he felt at the question down deep. Steve was right: now was not the time.

"My name is Natasha Romanov. This is not a test. I have been assigned to you." She didn't bother with platitudes like 'protect' or 'keep you safe' because it was pretty clear that Barton wouldn't believe her.

"And your tag-a-longs?" Clint nodded at the rest of them, clustered off to the side of the room.

"The same. I will introduce you shortly," she informed him, and there must have been something Tony missed in the conversation, because Clint was nodding in agreement now, and something about him became less tense. Less hostile.

"Cool. Just so you know, I'm not paying any of your bogus medical bills. 'Cause I'm pretty sure you need consent to treat me, which I can guarantee you didn't and don't have."

"Then I suggest you give us back that scalpel you borrowed," Natasha said. Clint smiled innocently and flipped his hand over to present the surgical blade he had somehow ( _seriously?!)_ hidden between his fingers this entire time.

"And the scissors," Natasha continued after Clint placed the scalpel with delicate drama on the countertop at his back. He paused, considered, and then unearthed a pair of office scissors from the waistband of his scrubs. They joined the scalpel.

"And the gun."

Clint froze, indecision warring more blatant on his face than any emotion he'd shown yet, before he slowly pulled up the hem of his pants, telegraphing every move, and tugged a gun out of his sock.

A gun. From his _sock_.

To be fair it was a small gun, one that Tony recognized would normally rest in an agent's ankle holster. The fact that practically-pre-pubescent-Clint was keeping it stuffed down his hospital issued tube socks was hilarious, and also scary. Jesus. He'd been out of his hospital room for what, five minutes? Behind him Steve took a deep breath.

"Can't blame a guy for trying," Clint carefully lay the weapon next to the other two and took a deliberate step away, to make it appear like they were out of reach.

"And the pen."

Tony couldn't help looking at Natasha incredulously, but was distracted by the momentary sour face Clint pulled before producing said pen from his other sock and slapping it on the table.

"Happy?" he snapped, but Natasha didn't respond with anything but an expectant eyebrow. Clint pulled a bitch face to be proud of and plucked a paperclip from his mouth, flicking it away to land in the fake potted plant behind him.

Natasha gave a tight nod.

"Well," Tony couldn't keep quiet as he looked at the pile on the black counter top, "Did anyone else know Barton was a serial klepto? Anyone?" he looked back to Clint thoughtfully, "I think we should rename you Magpie instead of Hawkeye. All in favour raise your hand." Tony already had his hand in the air, but the only person who seemed moderately interested was Thor.

"What is this magpie you speak of? Is it as mighty as a hawk?"

"I think it's time we moved this back upstairs," Steve suggested, ever practical and the ruiner of everything fun. "I'm sure Clint has some questions."

If he did he wasn't asking them now, just watching them all keenly and moving where Natasha subtly directed. At the elevator, as they waited in a decidedly awkward silence for the car to arrive, Clint watched them in the door's reflection and then announced casually, like he was speaking of the weather: "Just to make it clear, if you touch me without permission I'll fuck you up."

"Understood," Steve answered instantly and firmly. It pretty much went without saying that he was answering for all of them but Tony found himself nodding along as well. Clint seemed to need the reassurance, if his untrusting stare could be judged truthfully.

When the elevator arrived Bruce, Thor, and Steve opted to wait for the next one, not bothering with giving an excuse as to why. Tony had no intention of letting Clint out of his sight until he had to, because this was just too interesting. Of course he began to think that maybe he'd made the wrong decision when the doors slid shut and Clint became decidedly more agitated in the enclosed room. Tony and Natasha parked it in one corner to give him space, and stayed there.

"You're not going to try and impale me with a chocolate bar again are you?" Tony wanted to know. "Death by Snickers is not the dramatic exit I was planning from this life." Tony rubbed at his possibly swelling eye from the earlier attack, and contemplated finding an icepack. Clint smiled, and there was nothing friendly about it.


	2. The Great Escape

"How old are you Clint?" the doctor asked, friendly and calm and Clint slouched back in the chair of the medical wing's interview room.

"Old enough to show your sister a good time," he smirked. On the other side of the rooms observation glass Bruce made an unhappy face and Fury remained impassive. Inside the room Natasha raised an unimpressed eyebrow and the doctor read over something in his notes.

"I'm an only child," was his response before he went silent, patiently waiting for Clint's real answer. Clint licked his bottom lip, tilted his head, and tapped a finger on the metal table a few times with an uneven rhythm.

"Yeah well, I'm not," Clint finally answered with narrowed eyes. "Tell me what happened to Barney and I'll tell you how old I am." The doctor was shaking his head before he finished speaking.

"I don't think that's wise. You understand that what you remember-"

"Yes," Clint interrupted with an irritated sigh. "I get that it's 2013, I get that I used to be old and now I'm me, I _get_ that you don't want me to learn too much too fast. Even the circus orphan can grasp the simple things, Freud. I _want_ to know what happened to Barney."

There was a long moment of silence, and then Fury tapped the glass once. Clint glared at him through the clear window, before focusing expectantly on the doctor. The doctor didn't seem phased.

"Your brother became involved with the criminal underworld," he informed Clint neutrally. "He was arrested and is currently in prison."

Clint was silent for a long moment, staring at the doctor. He tapped the table a few more times.

"I'm sixteen," he finally replied.

"Try again," the doctor said dryly.

"He's fourteen." Natasha answered for him, and Clint shifted his attention to her.

"You seem awfully sure of that, but you'd be wrong." He looked back at the doctor. "I'd be working on getting my drivers license but there's the whole circus thing, you know? Kind of gets in the way of studying for the test."

"I can see how that could be true," the doctor agreed, and then looked at Natasha questioningly.

"He's fourteen," she repeated and Clint glared at her defiantly. She looked back steadily and silently dared him to deny it some more. He slumped into his chair and turned his glare to the tabletop; it was as close to an agreement as they'd get from him. Satisfied she looked back to the doctor and he seemed to understand that no, she wasn't going to explain how she knew. He proceeded with his questions and Clint proceeded to be stubborn about answering. It was nothing that hadn't been expected, which was why Natasha was in the room in the first place.

Later Bruce met up with her in the break room, standing beside her at the kettle. The room felt heavy with the lack of people in it.

"It's his scars, isn't it?" He asked softly, though it was clear he already suspected he was right. "His scars gave away his age."

Her silence was affirmation enough as she slowly prepped two chai teas, and Bruce went about making a cup for himself. There weren't a lot of scars on Clint, not compared to his older form, but there were still too many. Natasha knew Clint, and she knew his scars more than any medical file they had on him. She knew how he'd received them, and when. She went back to Clint in his private room to await news on how SHIELD would proceed with handling him.

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars."1 Bruce murmured to himself in the wake of Natasha's departure, rubbing subconsciously at his own knuckles. He tried not to feel the weight of the words, and used his hot mug to chase warmth back into his fingers.

"We don't know who's behind this attack," Fury stated in place of a greeting, demonstrating his usual lack of patience. He glared at the real time image imbedded in the center of the briefing table, his unhappiness at the entire situation beyond doubt. Displayed for the room was Clint Barton, still far too young, sitting in a corner of his hospital room dressed in clothes that were too big, a scowl, and an air of dejected fear he was trying to hide.

It was not a comforting image.

"We do not know," Fury continued with a general air of irritation, "if Agent Barton was deliberately targeted, if he intentionally got in the path of the intended target, or if this was a complete accident where the culprit panicked and ran."

"So in other words your spy network is failing you," Stark pointed out as he absently rubbed his bruising eye. Fury pressed his lips together in displeasure.

"In other words the attack was unprecedented enough to take down one of our best assets," he acknowledged. "Until we know more, or until Agent Barton returns to his normal state, we will be transferring him to the helicarrier for his protection."

Agent Romanov, who was listening in on this conversation while she sat guard in Clint's room, remained impassive. The group of men in the situation room with Fury immediately protested the decision with varying levels of insistence, but it was Roger's calm, "Are you sure that's wise? He should be with friends," that really got under Fury's eye patch. He cast a sharp look at Captain America, but otherwise he had nothing to add. Fury didn't have the luxury of labeling himself a friend to his subordinates, but that sure as hell didn't mean he didn't care.

He swept out of the room after his announcement, making a good show of pretending to disregard their opinions, feeling the Captain's gaze on his back. Fury would not budge on this; Clint would remain with SHIELD for now and that was final. He ignored the exasperated look Hill was giving him as he left her to defend SHIELD's decision alone. Sometimes it was good to be in charge, but most days the perks did not outweigh the pressures.

He did what he could.

Regressed-Clint, it turned out, was a little shit.

Naturally this made him Tony's new favourite person.

Pepper smiled beautifully when he made this declaration but otherwise didn't comment. Tony figured it was probably because she was too busy being amused by the live video playing on the common room's TV. Beside her Thor is laughing so hard he has tears in his eyes and even Bruce is grinning as yet another SHIELD employee went skidding down the hall, red faced and flailing.

Clint had somehow gotten his hands on an impressive quantity of 'super' lubricant and had generously shared it with the floor of one of SHIELD's more trafficked hallways. He'd essentially turned it into a massive slip-n-slide.

It was being met with mixed reviews from SHIELD, but from Tony's perspective it was pure joy. He was thinking of making one of those blooper reels from his recordings so he could watch it again and again. Maybe he'd put it on YouTube to test how long it would take SHIELD to tag and remove it.

Whatever he ultimately ended up doing, the live footage was worth its weight in gold. It only got better when Sitwell appeared on the screen and took in the situation as several junior agents flopped about. He did not disappoint as, after barely a pause, he was launching into a running start and then gliding, with more grace than Tony had ever given him credit for, through the translucent muck. He made it to the opposite end of the hall with no fuss and shoes that may or may not be ruined. If Tony were a betting man he'd say their Agent looked more pleased than anything, and he stuck his hand out for a high five as he wordlessly stepped passed Clint. The sandy haired teen looked a little startled, but slapped the agent's hand with a toothy grin and didn't watch him too attentively as he passed.

Steve made an approving sort of snort at the scene, which Tony also caught on camera. Hey, good blooper reels always included audience reactions- or at least they should.

Of course, as their luck generally went, good things never lasted, and apparently when Barton was involved they had the tendency to turn sour in spectacular ways.

It started with a group of junior agents too stubborn to change their route and apparently unable to keep their feet. It was far from a unique reaction so far, but this time one of them took exception to Clint's amused (mocking) grin.

"Aren't you supposed to be under house arrest?" he snapped as he moved to cross the hall, and Clint's amusement transformed to a carefully neutral mask that, naturally, looked slightly murderous. Tony felt his own mirth dwindle as the Agents slipped and flopped and ungracefully struggled to the other side of the hallway, closer to their teammate.

"Does it look like I'm outside the _house_?" Clint did a very good impression of sounding like he couldn't care less and that he thought the agent was, frankly, an idiot.

"It looks like you're not in your room, where you _should_ be," the guy snarled, face red from temper as he moved unsteadily, his pressed black suit half covered in the industrial lube. Tony recognized him now. He was the agent that had tried to forcefully herd Clint back to his assigned quarters two days before after coming across him in the cafeteria. Clint had slipped away embarrassingly easily, much to the guy's irritation. Clearly his evasion skills had left an impression that wasn't positive.

Clint didn't say anything in response to the accusation, but he did back away cautiously as the three agents made it to his side of the hall. He balanced subtly on the balls of his feet as the irritated agent approached him, and suddenly this was not fun at all anymore. This was a problem.

"Jarvis, warm up the jet," Tony ordered as the rest of the team watched the scene unfold, tensed to intervene and too far removed to do so.

"Terry," one of the other agents warned, looking at Clint carefully and clearly seeing the warning signs that Terry was ignoring.

"There's a reason you're supposed to be under lock. You're a threat, and if this," Terry pointed heatedly at the lube covered hallway, a glob of the fluid dripping from his wrist, "is anything to judge by you should be in a _cell_." Clint narrowed his eyes and took another smooth step backwards, further from the slick tracks on the floor.

"Terry, that's enough," the third agent said, showing a modicum of intelligence as he laid a warning hand on his shoulder. Terry shrugged it off.

"Coulson would have never let this little shit run loose like this," he glared at Clint. "And I'm not going to either. Come on kid, I'm taking you back to your room."

"Don't even think about touching me, you fucking gilly,"2 Clint hissed, but clearly Terry didn't feel threatened as he swiftly lunged forward to grab Clint.

"I will feed that man to an Elkor!" Thor thundered, jumping up like he might try and leap through the screen to get to Clint.

"Hold," Natasha ordered calmly from where she sat, with appallingly proper posture, on the largest couch. Thor thankfully refrained from rushing the screen, though whether it was from Natasha's order or Clint's response was uncertain.

Tony was more distracted watching Clint whom had swiftly dodged Terry's lunge and, with a seriously disturbing amount of glee, kicked him in the balls. Hard. Tony resisted grasping his own in sympathy and cheered Clint on as Terry crumbled to the ground. Having no air left in his lungs the guy couldn't even make a pained whimper as he curled in on himself. It was disturbingly satisfying to witness, considering the downed agent had almost certainly not intended to actually harm Clint.

The remaining two agents stepped back and held their hands out, displaying a lack of threat, but Clint had already thrown himself into a couple of ridiculously graceful back handsprings in retreat. He twisted mid air on the third one, tumbled into a roll, and sprang back to his feet in front of three security agents that had just arrived on scene. They clearly didn't know what was going on, but their intent to control the situation was obvious. Clint didn't give them a chance. He used his momentum to leap up, hands wrapping around the sprinkler head hanging down from the ceiling, and he curled his body sharply until his feet were smashing through the white ceiling tile. It popped out of the way with ease and he continued to bend until his feet, knees, hips, and then entire body was rolled inside. His hands were the last to disappear into the ceiling, and he made sure to take the time to give everyone the finger before he disappeared completely.

On screen the action was met with a mixture of astonishment and lack of surprise.

"How can he even jump that high?" Bruce muttered, his breathing slow and controlled, clearly joining the 'astonished' party.

"The jet is ready sir," Jarvis announced and Tony didn't need to suggest they take a little trip as he was the one trailing after the rest of his team to the hangar bay.

For five days they had allowed SHIELD custody of Clint to monitor his condition and search for a solution. Frankly it was five days too long. They were bringing him home.

It took Natasha half an hour to track Clint down in the helicarrier.

She stood in the center of the ships 'garage' surrounded by aircraft in different stages of repair, of transport vehicles being fitted with massive parachutes, and so many tools even Tony had looked slightly dazed the one time he'd barged in for a self-directed tour. The mechanics and ground crew threw curious looks her way but that was the only reaction she received.

"Want to get out of here?" She asked the ceiling. Thirty seconds later Clint's too-slight fourteen year old body landed near silently on the back of the closest plane. The man working in the cockpit glanced up, looked him over, and went back to work.

"Took you long enough," the teen grumbled, flipping off the plane dramatically and landing with a little self-impressed smirk that he smothered quickly. "You couldn't have come when I set the pool on fire?"

"There was no proof indicating that that was you," she swiftly began moving to the ship's exterior deck. Had the pool been more than a small, custom lap pool she figured the archer would be singing a much different tune. Clint was right beside her, but he gave no indication that he was actually relaxed now that she was here.

"Yeah well, proof is for amateurs," he grinned widely, showy, and didn't stop scanning everything around him as they moved. He was more obvious about it than Natasha was, but not by much.

When they reached the open air of the deck she wasted no time herding him onto their quinjet.

"Friend Clint!" Thor boomed with a gladness that was hard to fake. Clint started slightly, eyed the massive man with his apparently ever-present suspicion, before his face transformed into a bright grin.

It was his 'crowd-pleaser' grin: flashy and friendly and not reaching his eyes. A smile designed to hide what he was really feeling. Thor clearly saw this, but didn't let it dampen his greeting as he beamed a warm smile at the teenager. He also didn't move to approach Clint, and that was probably the reason Clint didn't hesitate to bounce into the jet. He nodded a greeting at Thor, because apparently actual words were too courteous.

"Wheels up," Steve ordered as soon as Natasha followed Clint into the back, and she slapped the control to close the hatch. Tony had the jet lifting off the ground before the door fully sealed. Clint flopped onto the bench seat next to Bruce and looked around curiously.

" _Stark!"_ Agent Hill's irritated voice filled the cabin. _"You do_ not _have permission to remove Barton from-"_

"Jarvis, kill communications, would you?" Tony asked, his pleasure clear as the radio cut out.

"So you guys are basically kidnapping me?" Clint's eyes lit up, suddenly appearing much more interested in the entire situation.

"Sometimes it's better to ask forgiveness than permission," Steve explained from the cockpit, lips twitching in an almost smile as he looked over his shoulder at Clint.

"Captain America, ladies and gentlemen, the man you want your children to be like." Tony waved a hand to encompass Steve, who was facing the controls once more, intently flying the jet back towards Manhattan. His cheeks were slightly red. Natasha watched as Clint levered himself out of his seat and moved to the front to join Steve and Tony.

"Can I fly?" he asked from a position just out of their reach.

"Sure," "No," came the overlapping replies and Bruce snorted, eyes tracking Clint subtly. Natasha followed his gaze, and didn't attempt to break Thor's wrist when his large hand rested lightly on her shoulder.

They had all noticed the dark bruising beneath Clint's eyes and his pallid skin. Exhaustion and wariness taking its toll as he tried to act like he wasn't still scared and panicking about being 'removed' from his life at the circus to what was virtually a captive of SHIELD. He had no memories beyond his fourteen years and no memories of them. The chances of him believing _anything_ they told him…well, the helicarrier had made a pretty decent impression and had helped convince him they weren't making _everything_ up; but Clint had learned to be untrusting from an early age and they were strangers.

She had no doubts that it was going to take a while for him to settle enough to not feel threatened at every turn. It might even take longer than that before he stopped trying to get away.

Clint's first impression of the tower: overwhelmed.

At least that was how Tony interpreted it as they stepped from the quinjet and onto the towers reinforced balcony. He watched as Clint took in the view of the city surrounding them, his eyes wide and Tony totally understood his reaction…actually, no, that was not true. He couldn't really get what Clint was probably thinking; he'd grown up surrounded by wealth and lavish lifestyles. It was Tony's normal.

Clint's piercing blue eyes only got wider as he moved inside, turning a full circle to take in the state of the art bar, the couches, all the glass, the obscenely expensive furniture, the Pollock that took up half of one wall, and the elevator door.

"This is all yours?" He asked, quieter than Tony had heard him yet, and he'd been keeping an eye on him via Jarvis since the moment Clint had been de-aged. Five days provided many opportunities for quiet, and Clint had avoided it masterfully.

"Yep," Tony agreed without thought, and then realized he was lying. "Well, technically it is, but it belongs to the rest of them as well," he pointed to where everyone else had shuffled inside after them. "We have this whole communal living thing going on; cooperative house meetings and family dinners included but minus fights over laundry machines and gratuitous orgies."

"Tony," Steve sighed, pained, but Clint seemed to think he was funny if the snort was anything to go by.

"Sounds just like home, but with running water and more soap," he said, a little more of his bravado back in place but he kept turning around, like there was too much to see and he needed to catch it all at once.

"We're not about to degrade to prison jokes are we? Because I strongly feel that is beneath me," Tony groused.

"I'm going to check in with Fury," Natasha announced and Tony nodded absently before realizing that she was probably announcing it only for Clint's sake. Clint watched her leave.

"Okay," Tony clapped his hands together, feeling an unnatural need to put Clint at ease and figuring distraction was the best method. "Basic house rules: tell Jarvis if you finish the last of something in the fridge, locked doors are to be respected unless you can figure out how to override them, in which case all the power to you. No explosives outside of the lab, no target practice outside the range," he paused here to give Clint a pointed look, but the teen wasn't even facing him, too intent on staring at Tony's prized Pollock painting. It was an enormous riot of colour on the far wall. "You know what? Just don't act like an idiot and we'll all get on fine. Questions?" Clint scanned the room again, eyes lingering on the bar but he shook his head no. Tony followed his gaze and decided another distraction was necessary, and since Steve, Bruce, and Thor were being unusually quiet and unhelpful it was up to Tony _again_. Pepper would be proud. "I'll show you your room and then we'll do the grand tour thing," he decided, waving a hand to indicate the building, and that got Clint's attention as he looked back to Tony.

"You have a bathroom around here?" he asked which, okay, not quite the response Tony was expecting but also not unreasonable.

"Just down that hall there on the right," Steve tipped his head towards said hall. "I'll show you."

"I got it, thanks," Clint shut down the offer immediately, not really leaving any room for Steve to insist, and a moment later he was disappearing around the corner.

"Well," Bruce scratched at his shoulder after a long moment of contemplative silence, "this is going to be an interesting experience."

"I have not lived with youth since I myself was but a blooming warrior. This shall truly be a welcome venture!" Thor decided, his eyes bright and warm with anticipation. Tony wasn't blind to the concern there as well, but the look on the Asgardian's face was generally gleeful. Most likely because he was certain that Clint's 'condition' wasn't permanent and he was looking to make the most of it. Tony could get behind that.

"Let's just try not to corrupt him too much," Steve rubbed the back of his head and then grimaced when all three men gave him incredulous looks.

"Yeah, pretty sure he's already been corrupted more than we'll ever be able to manage," Tony scoffed, "though I'm also sure our little prison break did wonders on the positive influence chart."

"Speaking of prison breaks, sir," Jarvis interrupted, and Tony couldn't help the grin that was already on his lips, just _knowing_ what Jarvis had to say, "it would appear that young Master Clint has taken your schooling to heart."

"He certainly doesn't waste any time," Steve looked impressed for all of a second before his sense of duty (or friendship, both of which generally went hand in hand for the guy) kicked in and wiped it away.

"He has always been a dedicated pupil," Jarvis agreed readily.

"Where is he now, Jarvis?" Bruce asked and Jarvis obligingly displayed a holographic Clint in the middle of the room to demonstrate his whereabouts. Clint looked decidedly determined.

"He is in the central stairwell, currently passing floor 79." Tony turned his back on the image of Clint pretty much leaping from one level to the next and shrugged at Steve.

"They grow up so fast," he grinned and Steve shook his head even as he turned to head to the stairwell Clint was utilizing for his liberation.

"Tony, take the elevator," he ordered. "Thor, wait outside the front doors in case he makes it to the ground. Bruce, stay here in case he doubles back and decides he wants to take the jet for a spin." Bruce nodded and flopped on the couch, eyes on the image in the middle of the room, not bothering to watch the rest of them run off.

Steve caught up to Clint on the thirty-second floor just as Tony casually stepped through a heavy steel door to stand on the landing of the thirty-first floor. Clint, his breathing rushed and face slightly flushed, skidded to a stop and looked between them.

"Can't blame a guy for trying," he sneered, and flinched back a step when Steve went to pat him on the shoulder. Steve casually aborted to grip the railing lightly instead, as if it had been his intention the entire time. Clint flicked his eyes between them warily now and Tony's chest did an unhappy little spasm.

"No, but I can make you walk all the way back to the top," Steve gave his friendly 'I mean you no harm' look, complete with the big, sincere eyes, and Clint's shoulders slumped minutely.

"What if I'm not on board with joining your little not-so-secret society?"

"Not so much of a choice right now, for basically allllll the same reasons that SHIELD didn't want you out of their sight," Tony reminded him, maybe a bit more sarcastically than necessary but hey, he'd never been a fan of hide and go seek, or tag…unless he was in his suit. That one time with Rhodey over Siberia had been fantastic. Point was, he didn't care for chasing the kid down in his own building. "You're not stupid, you know the risks. We just want to keep you safe."

"Sure," Clint sneered again, and it was fast becoming Tony's least favourite thing about him, namely because it just showed how much he didn't like them. Yet. Everyone liked Tony eventually…well, everyone who actually mattered to him. Mostly.

"Let's just get back up top, Tony will show you your room and I'll start on dinner. Natasha will be back by then and we can figure out where to go from there." Steve suggested. Clint went from wary to uncertain, his shoulders hunching in slightly and his brow furrowing in what Tony could only assume was confusion.

"You're still going to-" Clint cut himself off, shifted on his feet, and lowered his gaze submissively, before he seemed to catch himself and stood straight once more. "Dinner, right," he agreed, a hopeful gleam in his eyes and Tony was pretty sure he was as confused as Steve by the sudden about-face into hesitancy and return to defiance. "A nice, big juicy steak would hit the spot," he decided, his smirk back in place, "and a baked potato with the works. Think you can rustle that up, Chef?" he looked at Steve keenly and didn't seem to expect the thoughtful look on the guys face in place of a sarcastic 'no.'

"Maybe if you beat me to the top I can see what I can do-" Clint was sprinting back up the stairs, nearly as fast as he had been flying down the them minutes ago, before Steve finished his sentence.

Steve gave Tony a look that said he would appreciate there being half a cow's worth of steaks to grill up for dinner, whether he let Clint beat him or not. Tony rolled his eyes but the effect was lost as Steve was off chasing after a fourteen year old that they really shouldn't be catering too in light of his recent great escape attempt.

Jarvis politely informed Tony he'd placed the order with their butcher and the steaks would be delivered in twenty minutes.

Clint lost the race, because Steve probably didn't think the kid would accept a pity-win, and made sarcastic comments about communal spam sandwiches. When Tony hauled him back to the kitchen after finally showing him his room, the disbelieving glee at the unprepared food was worth it.

The kid stuck himself to Steve's side (or at least as close to it as his ingrained trust issues allowed) as he cooked, and was insistent on helping to the point that Tony joked that the food wouldn't disappear if he let it out of his sight for more than five seconds.

Clint gave him the finger, his default response it seemed, and Steve gave Tony a look that asked him to kindly _not talk._ Tony blithely informed them he'd be in his lab until dinner was ready.

The way Clint's eyes lit up when he was unceremoniously given a plate filled with the steak, fried mushrooms, baked potato and salad, was amusing. The way he immediately took it to the furthest point of the massive shared dining table, as far from them as he could get, and leaned over it, like he was afraid someone might try to take it away, was not.

Nor was the fact that Tony caught him sneaking his bread roll beneath the table where he furtively squirreled it away in a pocket. Clint wasn't as sneaky as he wanted to be, especially not when he had the undivided attention of people pretending not to watch his every move.

"Well?" Steve asked half way through the meal and Clint looked up to glare, one hand curling around the edge of his plate possessively. "Does the meal pass muster?" He asked casually as he speared his salad. Clint blinked slowly.

"'S fine," he said around his current mouthful and then swallowed. "Better than the crap on that flying boat at least. Letting you kidnap me might have been the smart move after all," he allowed, like there was any doubt, and Steve smiled, pleased. There was no denying Clint was happy with the meal. There was also no denying that he was probably just happy to have food and didn't really care too much about its quality.

"Truer words, kid. A little bit of friendly warning though, I'd steer clear of Thor's cooking," Tony nodded, having to clear his throat a little on the first word and gestured at the blonde Adonis across from him. "The man may be a god, but he can't conjure an edible meal this side of the galaxy unless Jane's holding his hand."

Thor's booming laugh was agreement enough, and beside him Bruce winced a little and rubbed at his ear, but he was grinning as well so Tony would take it as a win all around.

"Whatever you say," Clint agreed, looking pretty self-satisfied as he leaned back in his chair, nothing but a stripped T-bone left on his plate.

His eyes started drooping not long after that, the aching tiredness from only grabbing catnaps tucked into what he figured were safe corners on the carrier catching up to him. Tony pretended not to notice every time he jerked awake, until Clint quietly pushed back from the table and slinked out of the room.

"Jarvis," Tony spoke up after Natasha quietly slipped out after him.

"I will keep an eye on him sir."

It would have to be good enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. "Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars." - Kahlil Gibran
> 
> 2\. Gilly - Anyone not connected with the circus, an outsider or towner.


	3. Antiseptic Wipes and Band Aids

They put Clint in his actual apartment, figuring it was safe enough as Natasha went through and removed all the weapons. Whatever she couldn't find, chances were kid-Barton wouldn't find them either.

Clint hadn't said one word about whether or not he liked the space, but the way he tried to look around like he wasn't interested, had told Tony everything he needed to know. He wouldn't be surprised if the guy spent hours holed away in here as he tried to come to grips with the fact that the comfortable furniture, original artwork, and all the _stuff_ was _his_.

Barton wasn't a pack rat by any means, but he had no issues buying things he liked and displaying them proudly within his home. He might not have the most tasteful décor as far as Tony's tastes ran, but it was comfortable.

Clint eyed the bed the longest. Though Tony didn't read too much into that seeing as the sheets were a dark, vibrant purple satin.

Tony himself had eyed the bed with glee. Barton was going to get _so much shit_ for that when he was back to himself.

"We're not even certain Clint was the intended target," Bruce pointed out, snagging his coffee mug and pulling it out of reach just as Tony got close enough to grab it. Tony pretended he had been going for the light-sabre stylus instead, and pointedly ignored Bruce's knowing look as he twirled it between his fingers. "For all we know he could have been going after you or Hulk, and Clint somehow got hit in the crossfire." Which was a fair point, seeing as all three had been fighting in the same area at the time.

Frankly they were lucky that Tony had spotted Clint when he had, or that Jarvis had pointed him out, to be more specific. At that point they had known something was wrong because Clint had dropped off the comms, but when Jarvis directed Tony to abandon the fight and collect Clint immediately they had known it was serious. When Jarvis became insistent like that Tony and the team listened and Sitwell backed them up.

Nobody expected Jarvis to direct Tony to a twelve year old with Clint's uniform draped large and baggy over his shoulders, pants rolled up to his ankles, and his feet bare. They'd later find his mask with the discarded bow, quiver, and too large boots left in a pile against an alley wall.

Tony had landed in front of the kid that was apparently Clint, who had been picking his way through a mostly full parking lot, heading towards the train tracks that were easy to spot at the far end of the site.

"Well, this isn't right," Tony remarked, eyeing the kid cautiously. The boy looked shaky, pale, and had a barbed arrow gripped in his hand like he knew which end did the most damage. Clint froze and his eyes went _wide_ at the sight of Iron Man, disbelieving, uncertain, and freaked right out. Tony had frowned beneath his mask, and Jarvis was flashing biometric warnings all over the place on Clint's condition: low blood pressure, high pulse, body temp was too hot, pupils were unevenly dilated, he was sweating and too pale-

"You're telling me," Clint had squeaked, starting to retreat backwards, eyes darting about for an exit. A fraction of a second later he dove under a Honda Civic, rolling out of sight. Tony had blinked.

"Just in case any one is interested," he announced to the team at large, "it would appear that Hawkeye is now ten years old and just as sociable as ever." He bent over and carefully lifted one side of the car until it was high enough to easily see under. Clint stared back at him with wide blue eyes- were they always this blue? Tony had never noticed.

"Now is not the time for jokes Stark," Sitwell warned, and Tony pressed his lips together. You play _one_ joke on the guy while in the field and he never lets you hear the end of it.

"No jokes, Agent; you tell me often enough that I'm not funny."

Clint didn't say a thing now that he was exposed, he just executed a tightly-tucked back roll, and then another so he was clear of the car, and he was off running down the lane. He was smart enough to not bother hiding under another car, apparently seeing it as being useless since it clearly wouldn't protect him from Tony, but he seemed to be having difficulty keeping a straight line.

"If you think you can handle it, then please bring him in," Sitwell politely requested. Tony would have had something to say about the subtle sarcasm in their liaison's tone, but Clint had chosen that moment to crumble like a stack of bricks, flopping sideways onto the hood of a car and bouncing to the ground to lie still.

"Hawkeye's collapsed," he barked sharply, using his pulsors to leap to where Clint lay and scooped him up as gently as he could. Numbers flashed on his screen, the kid's weight, his body temperature, his too rapid pulse.

"I have medics standing by," Sitwell sounded as bland as ever, but he was right there taking Clint from Tony's awkward grip as soon as they landed, and laid him gently on the awaiting stretcher.

Bruce had heard the retelling from pretty much the entire teams perspectives, but Tony's was the one he paid the most attention to. He watched the technical wizard absently twirl his light sabre stylus about as he thought Bruce's words over, and wondered if maybe he should have just let Tony steal his coffee.

"Pros and Cons!" Tony declared suddenly, eyes gleaming, and Bruce decided that no, Tony didn't need his coffee, even if it was decaf.

"Not everything's a popularity contest," Bruce sighed, but didn't leave as Tony set up a holographic whiteboard over the worktable they were sitting at. In the end (after Bruce deleted most points like "Tony is clearly the most charming" and "Hulk's limited vocabulary might be refreshing to some would-be kidnappers") the chart mainly looked like this:

"So," Tony stood back and looked their chart over with an assessing eye, "this tells us basically nothing," he decided. Bruce had already gone back to reviewing SHIELD's archives, looking for anything that might possibly shed some light on how this had happened. After a few minutes he leaned back and sighed. He wasn't getting anywhere with this.

"Mutant?" Bruce looked at Tony and the guy shrugged in possible agreement.

"Magic?" Tony shot back and it was Bruce's turn to shrug. "Maybe we should get one of Thor's people to look the kid over, see what they can find?"

"If they didn't come to help us when their adopted prince-child tried to take over the planet I doubt they'll let us haul Clint to them to ask for a magical CT scan," Bruce pointed out.

"Thor thinks it's magic," Tony tapped his chin with the stylus.

"Thor thinks escalators are magic," Bruce stated blandly. They believed Thor, but they were keeping their options open. They stared at the chart for a long, silent moment.

"You know...sometimes I question the life choices I've made," Tony remarks off hand, and then taps 'acrobatic = flexible' into Clint's pro column. Bruce decides that food would be a good idea and leaves Tony to it.

"I want to meet the Hulk," Clint announced the next morning, having materialized without a sound, which pretty much brought a halt to all the semi-awake murmuring that was taking place between him and Bruce. Tony twisted around to see the kid leaning in the doorway, looking slightly awkward in his stiff new cargo pants and disturbingly bright green t-shirt.

He wasn't wearing any shoes…or socks. At least it was one less place to check for hidden weapons.

"Looks like the ninja-stealth was ingrained young," Tony muttered and took a deep drink of coffee. "We should make him wear tap shoes." Nobody seemed interested in his brilliant suggestion.

"How do you know about the Hulk?" Bruce asked, his hand tightening around his mug as he watched Clint intently.

"Toby news,"1 Clint snorted, like it was obvious, and drooped slightly when they all looked back at him blankly. "Gossip," he explained, like it pained him to have to use 'outsider' lingo. "The people on that helicarrier are worse than our flyers;2 like they don't have anything more interesting to talk about than _you_ guys." Tony bet they had a lot more interesting things to talk about, and Clint had probably heard more than just random gossip about their team.

"And- why would you want to meet him?" Bruce asked, like maybe it was a foreign concept that somebody would want the Hulk around when there wasn't a battle, when he wasn't deliberately provoked or needed. Huh.

"He's a part of the team, right? Why shouldn't I meet him?" Clint stared unblinking at Bruce. Creepy fucker.

"Because he's…a lot to handle." Bruce floundered a little bit for the answer, clearly not really knowing how to react to this. Tony wasn't sure if it was because Clint seemed honestly interested, or because nobody had ever just asked to meet Hulk before. Clint apparently didn't think too much of that answer if his long-suffering eye-roll was anything to go by.

"Seriously, getting between the Strong Man and the entire zanni3 clan is a lot to handle. Mucking the bull pen4 is a lot to handle. Meeting your larger half? Doesn't really seem like a big deal."

"If you heard the agents at SHIELD talking about him then you know he's dangerous." Bruce warned, to which Clint continued to look unimpressed and Tony leaned back against the counter feeling much more awake after only four hours of sleep. Seeing Bruce genuinely flustered about this was a great way to start the day.

"So when can I meet him?" was apparently the only worthy response to that.

"Meet who?" Steve asked, coming in from the other side of the room, all sweaty from his morning run as he started to rummage through the cupboards.

"Wonder boy here wants to meet our resident temperamental green giant," Tony grinned, wide, and Steve paused to look over at Clint, who was still slouched in the doorway, before going back to his rummaging.

"Makes sense. Does Hulk want to meet him?" he asked over his shoulder and Bruce rubbed at his eyes beneath his glasses. Tony suspected he hadn't actually gone to bed yet. And Pepper was always saying that _Tony_ was the stubborn insomniac. Ha.

"I don't know. He seems-" Bruce's face did a weird little scrunch "a bit confused? Or, shy." His eyes went comically wide as he looked back at Clint.

"I can work with shy," Clint grinned, like it was a done deal, and Bruce frowned into his tea.

"I'll think about it."

"Cool." Clint said, and turned to disappear back down the hall.

"Hey, you had breakfast yet?" Steve called and Clint hesitated, before turning around, the friendliness from moments ago gone.

"I ate," Clint informed them, and Steve nodded like he had figured Clint had, what with him being a self-sufficient fourteen-year-old. Tony moved to get more coffee, deciding a distraction was necessary.

"Good. I wasn't sure if we mentioned that this kitchen's communal. Help yourself any time you're hungry." Steve said, all casual and unassuming as he pulled a box of his favourite powerbars from the cupboard and unceremoniously dumped them on the kitchen island they were perched around.

"I'm good," Clint denied as he eyed the box with clear interest, and then disappeared down the hall.

Steve slumped as soon as the teen was out of sight, and shoved the box back in the cupboard without taking anything for himself. Tony abruptly remembered that Steve generally didn't eat anything right after his runs, usually waiting until he'd showered.

"We'll have a team lunch today," Bruce decided, folding over the counter and burying his face in his arms like he might just fall asleep right there.

"So his knowing about Hulk isn't a returning memory?" Steve asked, having missed most of the conversation.

"SHIELD water cooler gossip at its finest," Tony snorted, and left to go back to his floor, with all his things, where his morning shake was waiting for him in his fridge. He stared at the disgusting green, yet surprisingly tasty, sludge before pulling it from the fridge, glass cold in his grip.

"Jarvis, make sure there's…fruit bowls or something lying around for easy grabs."

"Very good sir, I will take care to select Clint's usual favourites."

"Sure, thanks," he mumbled, distracted by thoughts of flight as a flock of pigeons soared passed his window. He spent the rest of the morning absorbed in designs for a new jet.

Natasha found Clint substituting his bed for a trampoline. It wasn't the first time this had happened in their acquaintance and Clint looked just as impressed with himself as always as he tried to tuck in as many rotations as possible with the confines of the ceiling.

He stopped the moment he noticed her, blatant fear flashing on his face before it was chased away by aggression. She ignored it. The less emotions she acknowledged, the more her older Clint would appreciate, in case he retained his memories of this time once he was back.

"What are you doing in my room?" he demanded, which was just challenging her to comment on his jumping on _his_ bed. She didn't. "Don't you need an invite or something?"

"I have an open invitation from your older self," she shrugged, and instantly he leered, looking her up and down slowly. Lewdly. She wasn't upset by the impression he was deliberately making; she had been well versed in sex by his age as well and this was just another ill thought out test on her patience. She could not afford to let herself dwell on both their experiences, it was a waste of time and brought no comfort.

"Well consider that invitation ongoing," he smirked, but he still took a half step away when she moved further into the room. She spotted a steak knife from the evenings meal on the bedside table.

"Thank you. Do you have plans?"

"I could," he leered again, a little uncertainly this time and she nodded, sweeping her gaze to the dresser on the far side of the room and over all the new, neatly stacked clothing piled carefully on top.

"Good. Steve and I are going to be training for the next few hours. You are welcome to join us in the gym. Jarvis will direct you." She turned her back on him and left without further words. When she arrived at the gym Steve was already busy on the punching bag but he looked behind her expectantly and his face fell when he saw she was alone.

"He will show up," she headed towards the mats, "he hates inactivity and being confined, but he needs to make the choice himself or he will not allow himself to see us as potential friends."

Clint showed up half an hour later, eyeing the exercise equipment lining the nearest wall that they were working at. Steve stopped immediately and grinned, and she nodded shortly at him.

"Glad you decided to join us," Steve declared with true warmth, which seemed to make Clint more guarded, but he came further into the room regardless.

"Didn't realize I could use your stuff," he muttered, looking around again. She was glad they had decided to stick to the small gym for this first day.

"Not _my_ stuff, all our stuff," Steve corrected without hesitation and Clint rolled his eyes at the sincerity but otherwise didn't comment. She could tell he didn't believe Steve, but that he was willing to pretend he did until this new 'privilege' was removed. "Feel free to use this place any time, so long as you're safe about it," he tagged on and then moved to stand beside Clint. "Want the tour?"

Turned out teenage Clint had terrible form on the machines and free-weights, he absolutely hated every cardio machine available (which wasn't a surprise as Older Clint avoided them as much as possible), and he neglected to rehydrate unless reminded.

He warmed up to the place in the end though, finally burning off a weeks worth of tightly coiled energy. Being confined and constantly watched had made him tense to the point where he was almost ready to lash out in desperation.

Natasha was satisfied that he wouldn't make a break for freedom again for the rest of the day, seeing as he'd need to gather his energy once more. It would give her time to head to the helicarrier for a meeting with Sitwell that afternoon.

It was rare that she was wrong.

Fortunately the news chopper that managed to record Clint jumping up and down on the Ironman landing pad while pointing at the giant painted words – **Help! Im a hostige!** \- thought it was just a Stark ruse. The station played it off as another eccentric prank and took a poll on whether people thought it was funny or irresponsible. The police didn't investigate as Sitwell was a competent liaison who played well with outside authority agencies when it suited him.

Tony was pissed that he had to figure out how to remove bright red spray paint from his high-tech deck.

Clint announced loftily that his confidence in 'the system' had been destroyed.

Everyone was too polite to point out that he'd never put any stock into it in the first place.

"I won't miss again, I _swear_ ," Clint pleaded, sudden, sharp and desperate. His voice cut through the room like one of his arrows: swift and piercing. There was nothing comforting about the fear and anger and frustration in his words and everyone stilled, staring, unwilling to move until they had more information. Then Clint knuckled his forehead, his entire body shivered, and he went back to eating like he hadn't said a thing.

After a moment of ensuing silence, where everyone kept watching him, he tensed and glanced up, pulling his plate slightly closer his chest.

"What?" he scowled, clearly not appreciating the attention.

"I missed what you said," Bruce hedged carefully, his posture as unthreatening as always, "Could you repeat it?"

Clint cut him the stink eye, and then shared it with everyone for good measure, before grumbling "I didn't say anything." He clearly believed his answer, going back to his meal and pointedly pretending to ignore all the attention.

"Well, that's not normal," Tony announced, and flinched when Bruce kicked him in the shin. Clint ducked his head and started watching them from hooded eyes. It was skillfully subtle…considering how obvious the action was. Tony glared at Bruce. "Well, it's not," he snapped and looked at Clint with interest. "You're talking out loud and apparently not realizing it."

"I didn't say anything," Clint repeated.

"Yeah yeah, quit being a broken record already-"

"Tony, shut up," Natasha suggested with a polite smile that had him quickly miming his mouth zipped closed.

Nobody was particularly familiar with the side effects of magically de-aging someone to their 'little shit' years (as Tony had fondly declared the phenomenon when Clint had managed to successfully glue his SHIELD guard's hand to the door his second day on the carrier, and then led the security detail on a manhunt for four hours before being found), but that got Bruce and Thor talking about encroaching memories and timeline overlays and kinetic evolution until they were whisking Clint off to Bruce's lab. Clint went, looking a bit overwhelmed by all the talk, but he submitted to Bruce and Tony's tests without complaint so long as Thor kept talking about his understanding of magic (which was more entertaining than actually enlightening).

Talk turned to genetic region coding, and mutations, and memory encoding and retrieval, and more complicated things that had Clint glaring at everyone angrily and eyeing the glass beakers across the room like he was about to turn them into projectiles. Bruce quickly explained that it meant that while Clint waswith _them_ now, the memories he'd created when he'd been fourteen the first time around were emerging as his body physically aged. They didn't know why he couldn't remember what he said, but he was, essentially, having cognitive upgrades in keeping with his past experiences.

"That doesn't make any sense!" Clint snapped and moved away from where he'd been closely watching them work on the computers. "How can I be experiencing things from-from my _other_ life when I'm here, right now, with _you_! In the freaking future!"

"Magic is not exactly an explained phenomenon," Bruce sighed and Clint backed towards the door, away from him and Tony and Thor.

"Yeah, if it even _is_ magic! You can take your unexplained load of bullshit and eat it, because if you think I'm just some stupid guy who can't tell when he's being fed a line-" he cut himself off, his breathing heavier.

"Nobody thinks you're stupid Clint," Bruce insisted kindly, which apparently just made Clint angrier.

"I don't care what you think!" he snapped and then fled the room, leaving three silent men staring uncertainly at the glass door.

"Well, that went better than I expected," Tony said, tapping absently on his reactors rim. "I think we're growing on him."

"If that is true than I do not understand the youth of your planet, or perhaps more uniquely the youth of Clint Barton," Thor sighed.

"Unique is one way of describing him," Tony looked at Bruce with a grin, "but at least he didn't try to blind us with chocolate bars this time around."

"My tablet's gone," was Bruce's dry response, though he didn't seem upset as he pinched the bridge of his nose before letting his glasses fall back into place.

"Jarvis? Where's our little thief-that-could run off to?" Tony asked.

"Young Master Barton has ensconced himself in the upper shelving of his quarters closet," Jarvis dutifully reported and, without further investigation they went back to figuring out why Barton's brain wasn't overloading from the confusion of being with them now while his past experiences became a present part of his development.

When Bruce came back from dinner that night his tablet was propped beside his lab's door.

"I'm not a klepto," Clint decided, slinking into Tony's lab like he'd been invited and taking everything in with his sharp, quick eyes.

"I'm not telling Thor to stop calling you Mighty Magpie," Tony rebutted, uninterested as he flicked through the blueprints before him.

"I looked it up, and kleptomaniacs take things just _because_ ," Clint was oddly insistent about this, voice tight and frustrated in a way that the older Clint Barton rarely was, or at least rarely showed. "I only take things I need."

"Oh good, you can read," Tony said sarcastically, and when Clint's face flushed angrily he realized that maybe, _maybe_ , he should start watching what he was saying around the teen.

"Yeah, the dumb carnie can read," Clint snapped, squaring his shoulders and Tony had a hand raised in apology before he could work himself up; because older Clint would have recognized Tony's sarcasm as a kneejerk-reaction and would have probably laughed or slapped him with a regurgitated quote from Napoléon or some shit to put him in his place. Tony was well aware that Clint had learned how to read before he'd run off to the circus. Clint had once personally informed him of that very fact while he'd been smearing Tony's face in the gyms floor mats the first time they sparred together.

He was starting to recognize a pretty obvious pattern here though, what with all the references to himself as a less than intelligent carnie.

"Listen, kid," Tony started and Clint narrowed his eyes even more. Touchy. "Something we need to clear up right now, is that insulting people is both a hobby and instinctive for me."

There. He'd apologized. Feeling better about something he hadn't really done wrong in the first place, Tony turned back to his work. It took a moment to remember that Clint had actually come here with something to say. He was still there, giving him a guarded look. What else was new? "Was there actually something you wanted?"

Clint faltered for a moment, enough to get Tony's undivided attention for the first time since sneaking into his lab at, he looked at the clock, three-thirty in the morning? Huh. There went his plan of getting a good nights sleep.

"This place is yours," Clint replied, after a moment, and seemed to firm his resolve by jutting his chin out. "I get that, and I get that you're gonna expect some kind of payment for the food and clothes and stuff," a knot of unease began to build in Tony's chest, right behind his reactor. Clint took a breath, seemed to pull his fiercest gaze up, and leveled it on Tony. "But I'm not gonna drop to my knees for you or anyone here to pay you back, and I will cut anyone who even thinks about trying anything. So you can either let me _go_ , or tell me what the fuck you're expecting from me so I can start figuring out how to pull my weight."

Tony lost his words. His throat clicked as he swallowed in the echoed silence of his lab. Even Dum-E had stopped puttering around on the other side of the room. Clint crossed his arms expectantly. Impatiently. He stood across from Tony in the bright lights of his lab. Tony could see the masked fear in his eyes; he noticed how he was hiding his hands, like maybe he had a weapon because he wasn't sure how this 'conversation' would go and-

Jesus.

Fuck.

"Are you giving everyone this speech? Or am I just the apparent asshole of choice?" Tony snapped and shoved away from Clint until the back of his rolling chair bumped into his desk. It wasn't far enough. Clint's eyes went wide in surprise as Tony jumped up and then moved quickly to the other side of his workbench, making sure it was between him and Clint before pacing back and forth in agitation. Because seriously. "What the fuck?" he muttered to himself, and glared at Clint.

"You own this place-" Clint started, dropping his arms to reveal that he was empty handed; no appropriated steak knife in sight.

"Yeah, that's not a secret," Tony said and bristled when Clint angled his left shoulder back, probably preparing to reach for said steak knife, because Tony would bet Dum-E that the kid had it squirreled away somewhere on his person. "I own the building and pretty much everything in it. Hell, I own my own _island_ , but let me make something clear to you, because apparently you lack social norms that none of us accounted for: I do _not_ own the people. I do not own them and I sure as fuck do not want what you're suggesting. Ever.

"Furthermore!" Tony continued, flinging an arm wide to both dispel some of the angry energy trembling inside him and encompass the entire world. "If _anyone_ ever tries to make you do what you're suggesting either in house or out, then I will not only let you cut them up but I will wield the plasma torch that digs a hole through their chest for you to spit in."

There was a long moment of silence where Tony stared at Clint and Clint stared back. He was clearly trying to remain unaffected, distant, but he hadn't learned how to hide all his emotions away yet. Tony had heard stories about how Clint had been when first recruited to SHIELD. If this was the current baseline for his expectations of humanity than Tony didn't want to know what had happened to turn him into early-SHIELD Clint.

"That's a bit dramatic," Clint finally broke the silence Tony refused to fill, but he didn't appear any more or less at ease. "And graphic."

"No," Tony didn't even need to think on his response. "It isn't. I invited the others to live here, do you see me making demands from them for permission to stay? No-" he answered the not-question himself before Clint had a chance "-you don't. You know why? Because I am a genius billionaire happily committed philanthropist, not a child-molesting monster! So don't come in here and suggest that I would ever consider or condone something like that. Because you are _wrong_."

Clint crossed his arms, recognized that he had done so and uncrossed them. He didn't look away from Tony, because that would be taking his eyes off the apparent threat, but he ducked his head away a bit. Tony kept glaring, because not glaring would mean expressing things neither of them wanted to deal with.

"What do you want from me then?" There was no lack of challenge in his posture or tone, though he was slightly more uncertain now. Tony took a calming breath.

"I don't want anything from you."

"Bullshit. Nothing is free."

"Yeah, well, as we have both so astutely noted: I have more money than Gates and Rowling combined."

"Nothing," Clint emphasized slowly, "is free."

"You've already more than earned your place here. We're not kicking you out just because you've reverted to your pimple-popping golden years and don't know who we are."

Clint didn't look appeased by that in the least. Tony figured if he were in Clint's shoes he wouldn't be either. Tony moved back to his chair, snagged it and shoved it back in front of his desk. He frowned at Clint.

Fine. He could work with this.

"You might not think you're a part of this team-" he almost said _family_ but that was a bit ambitious. Tony didn't do families; their burns took too long to heal. "But when your older you isn't on missions he- you- tend to help out around here. Keep an eye on security, help people train, give a hand where you think it's necessary. Sound good enough? Because you never struck me as the needy type."

"Fuck you," Clint snapped (his insults as an adult were definitely more creative), but his shoulders relaxed and Tony wondered how he'd missed the fact that the kid needed tasks? Distractions? Purpose? It was rule numero uno in Tony's personal handbook on dealing with things that sucked.

Clint slipped away and Tony absolutely did not collapse into his rolling chair. He resisted cupping his face with his hands mainly because they were covered in grease, and questioned the forces in the world that created a fourteen year old that carried the cynicism Tony hadn't cut his teeth on until Afghanistan, and the guts to address it head on.

He suddenly felt exhausted.

He startled roughly when Clint reappeared only a few feet from him and lightly slapped something on his table. Tony looked to the antiseptic wipe and Band-Aid blankly and up at a cautious looking Clint in question. The kid shrugged indifferently at him.

"If I'm going to be the glorified live-in assistant I might as well do the job properly." He nodded at the back of Tony's arm and Tony twisted it over awkwardly to see a streak of dried blood on his triceps. He distantly remembered a sharp pain as he'd been rummaging through his scrap bin earlier. He eyed the first aid supplies. The cut was negligible, but this was Clint's way of agreeing to his apparent 'terms of accommodation.' He grabbed the antiseptic wipe and ripped the small package open. Clint didn't wait around to make sure Tony slapped the Band-Aid into place.

Tony went back to work. Distraction. Distraction was good. He would sleep later.

notes:

1 **Toby News** — Circus-lot gossip, from the European/Romani "tober," meaning campsite **.**

2 **Flyers:** aerial acrobats

3 **Zanni** : clowns

4 **Bull pen** : Elephant stall


	4. Cornerstone

Tony had not been prepared for Jarvis to interrupt him only two hours after the admittedly upsetting conversation with the resident adult-teen, with the urgent insistence that he suit-up.

He had been even less prepared to not fly beyond the seventh floor of his own building.

He hovered in the open air with the first tendrils of sunrise glowing in the east, and kept his face piece in place as he took in the situation. Two yards before him, with his feet braced against the thick glass and hands tightly gripping a black rope, Clint scowled fiercely over his shoulder at Tony. His eyes were an eerie grey-blue in the faint morning light.

Tony looked upwards, his vision automatically zooming in as he traced the path of the rope to the window Clint had started at. Twelve stories above them a neat rectangular hole had been removed from the sheer glass wall, right where it met the floor. It had been cut just large enough for Clint to slide his slender body through. The rope pulled taut over the sharp ledge, a torn strip of t-shirt wrapped around it to prevent fraying. The same shredded t-shirt was wrapped tightly around the palms of Clint's hands.

"Looks like your measurements were a little off," Tony pointed out while avoiding looking down. He didn't need the visual reminder that the rope ended not even half a floor below them.

"Math's not really my thing," Clint growled and glared at him in the glass's reflection.

Dangling with no safety harness seven stories above his potential demise with arms that were beginning to shake, and Clint was still glaring at Tony. Tony eyed the telltale bulge in the boy's back pocket, instantly recognizing the shape of the small laser-cutter he'd been using when Clint had initially barged into his lab the few hours before.

"You realize this damages your claim of not being a klepto," he pointed out.

"It was something I _needed_ ," Clint denied, his scowl deepening like it was _Tony's_ fault he was literally at the end of his rope dangling on the outside of his building.

"You're starting to hurt my feelings," Tony sighed, carefully keeping his tone light. "Anyone might begin to think you don't like it here." Clint's arms were shaking blatantly now. He might be slight for his age, and he might be disturbingly strong despite said slightness, but this wasn't a walk in the park for him by any stretch and the strain was beginning to show.

"What's not to like? Great food, nice people, the inability to leave." Clint pressed his words out between clenched teeth. Tony had had enough. He didn't bother warning the child archer as he plucked him from the wall, carefully securing him to his chest with one arm, and flew directly back up to their main balcony. Natasha and Steve were there waiting, the latter still in his sleeping sweats and shirt. Tony very happily landed right beside them and released his burden. Clint took a few hasty steps away from their small assembly, and faced them with a stony expression and clenched fists.

He was clearly expecting a fight.

No, Tony corrected himself as he took in the wide eyes, clenched jaw and expectant stance; he was expecting punishment.

"Can somebody please take him out for a walk or something? This need for fresh air and freedom is going to end up costing me a small fortune if I have to keep replacing windows and paying off reporters," Tony demanded, and held out an expectant hand with a scowl of his own. Clint slapped the two-inch laser-cutter right over his glowing palm a moment later and Tony didn't bother waiting to watch the interrogation/dressing down the remaining adult Avengers would give Clint.

He was too busy trying not to think about how Clint apparently saw no problem with shimmying out of a nineteen-story window with nothing but a rope and determination.

He was learning more about Clint than the archer had given away in the entirety of the last year of living and working together. He hadn't exactly been expecting sunshine and rainbows, because hello? It was Barton. But this wasn't painting the nicest of pictures and Tony was decidedly _not_ a fan of the colour spectrum they were working with.

Launching back into the sky Tony decided a nice, long flight was necessary; it would be something to calm his racing heart.

Pepper was visiting an installation in Arizona. He'd surprise her with lunch.

Steve didn't bother trying to talk some sense into Clint after Tony had unceremoniously dumped him at their sides with nothing but a few curt words and hasty retreat. Observing Clint watch Tony take off with an uncertain frown told him the kid was confused enough as it was. Plus Steve highly doubted anything he had to say on the continued escape attempts would make an impression one way or another. Not until Clint relaxed enough to start to give them an inch.

One thing was abundantly clear though, and that was that their young teammate expected to be punished, and not by a light tap on the wrists.

Clint turned his assessing gaze back to Steve and Natasha pretty quickly after Tony blasted off, and focused on Natasha. His posture remained defensive, and angled at Steve in a way that clearly stated he expected him to be the one to strike first.

He didn't look much better rested than he had on the carrier, but he wasn't as pale anymore. It was something at least.

"What are you trying to run to?" Natasha asked softly, and Clint tried so hard to remain impassive, but the corner of his eyes creased and he swallowed thickly. He was still shaking from his climb, or maybe from _everything_. Steve still felt like he was shaking apart himself sometimes, living in a world only recently familiar and still so foreign. Clint didn't answer her, but she didn't seem surprised.

"When you decide," she tilted her head slightly as she looked at Clint, "you will tell me, and I will help you get there." She turned and walked back inside the building and even though her back was to them Steve suspected she didn't miss the wide, uncertain flicker of emotion her words cast upon her target.

It was only a moment before Clint shifted his entire focus back on Steve, and looked like he was bracing himself for a fight all over again.

Steve was suddenly struck with how _exhausting_ it must be.

"You had breakfast yet?" he asked, because tired people needed food, and growing kids always needed food. Clint needed to eat more.

"I was busy," Clint smirked like he didn't have a few protein bars packed tightly in his cargo-pants pockets. Steve was well aware that they were contingency bars meant for when he failed to find a meal on the streets. He'd never gone without for long himself, but he was no stranger to portioning and making meals stretch, and he was well versed in deprivation.

"Come on then, you can help me make eggs for everyone."

Clint followed with only a slight show of hesitance, and he still looked surprised when Steve shoved a plate piled high with the result of their efforts before him. When Clint slipped away pretty quickly after that Steve wasn't worried about another escape attempt. Not so soon at least. He had suspicions that Clint had known exactly how long his rope had been; he set out that window knowing he wouldn't reach the bottom; he'd expected to be caught.

Steve wondered if Clint was aware of how obviously he didn't want to leave, and then wondered if he was testing them for some other purpose.

They had two solid days with no incursions, excursions, or perversions. All in all this was considered, by the majority of the team, as a win.

Clint started spending a lot of time in the small gym. When he wasn't there he was helping in the kitchen, subtly following everyone around, popping up to lend a hand when they seemed to need one, or literally climbing the walls. The boy had a different grace doing this now than their older Clint, mainly because he had less mass to accommodate for and was still growing. All his favourite perches remained the same though.

He'd seemed surprised when no one blinked an eye at him being wedged up in awkward corners or hanging from protruding ceiling lights. He seemed suspicious that they didn't try to drag him down.

On the second afternoon Natasha joined him in a deceptively easy sprawl across the ledge that bisected the top of the massive common rooms window-wall. From the high perch the two shifted only to change their gaze from the outside world to the inside. It took Clint a very long time to relax, but when it became clear that she wasn't going to do anything more than sprawl lazily with him (three hours later) he unclenched tense muscles and stopped watching her so sharply.

It was a win.

The next day Bruce and Tony returned from a meeting with SHIELD's scientists and engineers and were no closer to figuring out what had happened to Clint.

Thor was unconcerned.

Apparently Clint was as well.

Nobody was really sure they believed either of them.

"I can't just leave, Barney! I'll _never_ pass for eighteen!"

Bruce stilled as Clint's soft words reached him from across his lab, and looked over to the workbench Clint had stuffed himself under. He could just see his feet, wearing shoes this time (a rule in the labs), and the faint glow of the tablet he'd been using. For a moment nothing but heavy breathing drifted through the lab, until it was interrupted by the low whirring of one of Tony's cleaning bots as it moved, louder than usual, about the room. It must be nearing midnight. Bruce wanted to encourage Clint to go to bed, to get the sleep his body _needed_ , but knew his words wouldn't do anything but instill hostility. Also, it was a bit hypocritical.

When Clint dragged himself out from under the bench an hour later he slumped to where Bruce was hunched over his table monitor and plunked a bottle of water in front of him. Bruce took it, both because it was expected and because he was thirsty. He thought about the few times Older Clint had meandered into the labs in the early morning hours and done the same thing. Older Clint didn't usually hover a few feet away while trying to peek at his work though.

"What's that?" the teen nodded at the glowing graphs and equations amassed across the tables screen, eyes darting quickly as he took it in. Bruce looked at the screen a bit blankly, because where did he even begin to explain? The octopus-like-roomba that was vacuuming bumped into the legs of his stool. Clint looked down at it and frowned.

"I'm exploring the hypothesis that low-levels of ionizing radiation can have potential beneficial influences on repair mechanisms within living tissue." One of the Roomba's six hose-like arms jumped up and smacked him in the shin. Bruce jerked and then gently nudged it away with his foot. It wasn't the first time it had done that these last few weeks. Clint seemed to take exception to this though, and crouched down to smoothly snatch it off the ground with a frown. He moved to the far edge of Bruce's bench and placed it on the corner. Four of its six vacuum legs swung around in what was an unnerving mimicry of alarm. Clint placed a hand on the back of its encased core-body to hold it in place.

"Stay," he muttered at the thing, "or you'll fall off the table."

The octa-roomba obediently settled down. Bruce watched it curiously, because it had never listened to any of _his_ commands, and after Clint wandered away it remained where it was with two limbs dangling over the edge of the stainless steel counter. Bruce was slightly offended by the thing's easy compliance before remembering that, Stark invention or not, it was still just a robot. It didn't play favourites. Glancing back at his screen, absently sipping at his water, Bruce waited while Clint apparently felt it was fine to rummage through any drawer he felt like in the lab before coming back to the table with a handful of tools.

Bruce watched curiously as Clint eyed the bot from one side and then the other, and then set about dismantling the outer casing.

"You sure you want to mess with that?" Bruce asked, and Clint shrugged.

"I watched Stark do it. Doesn't seem that hard." Right, sure, why not. Bruce hid an amused grin. "So, what?" Clint's focused gaze drifted briefly over to his constantly shifting graphs and readings. "You're looking to see if you can turbo-charge the healing process? Like in you and Hulk, or Rogers?"

Bruce couldn't help the brief surprise at the slightly distracted question, mainly because he had thought Clint had only initially asked to be polite. Of course he quickly realized his mistake with that thought, because Clint rarely asked about things to be polite, and it would be unfair to say he was surprised that Clint understood his base explanation; he knew Clint was highly intelligent.

"Yes, something like that, but to a less dramatic degree."

"Trying to cure cancer, Doc?" Clint muttered quietly, and then grinned as he disconnected one of the robot's tubular arms.

"Wouldn't that be nice," Bruce muttered somewhat bitterly, as he pushed up his glasses to rub at tired eyes. Clint hummed, non-committal, and didn't say anything else for a while.

Bruce kept watching him. Something was different about him. He was subdued despite the apparent mechanical dissection he was partaking in. It was nudging at Bruce's warning bells, and he turned possibilities over in his head before deciding that it must be the flashover (it was the easiest way they'd decided to refer to Clint's brief reveals of his memory/life while in this present) he'd just experienced.

He took another pull at his water bottle only to realize that it was empty. Clint cut him a quick, unreadable glance.

"So how are things with Barney?" The question rolled off Bruce's tongue without much ease, but he managed to keep his posture relaxed and pretended to focus on his readouts. He randomly adjusted a few graphs, and then quickly fixed them. Clint stilled, his micro-screwdriver poised over the exposed guts of the bot for a long moment.

"I had one of those episodes again didn't I," he stated more than asked, and Bruce's heart kind of flip-flopped in dismay for the guy. He knew what it was like living with two beings in one, he could only imagine what it must feel like to live with two existences overlapping. He had no idea why Clint wasn't a basket case by this point.

He didn't know whether he should love or hate whatever magic or technology did this to Clint when he considered that.

"You did," Bruce confirmed softly, feeling the big guy stir deep inside. He took a breath and calmly pushed him back down. Clint began snapping one of the arms back onto the bots main body, his movements sharp but precise. Angry. He took this as the cue that the teen wasn't going to say anything else, but after a long moment of tense silence Clint surprised him.

"Barney's my brother. Did you know that?" he asked and Bruce nodded.

"Yeah, but that's pretty much all I know. You don't talk about him, at least not to me," he admitted, because the last thing he wanted to do was give his friend the illusion that they were closer than they actually were. Sometimes keeping personal things close to the chest was as much a form of denial as it was self-protection, and they were all affluent practitioners.

"He enlisted. Left yesterday or-" he stopped what he was doing and pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes, rubbing deeply in frustration before taking a breath and picking up the bot's second arm for reattachment. "-like twenty years ago." Bruce didn't say anything, and felt like he'd been sucker-punched when Clint's breathing grew shaky before he very forcibly controlled himself. "Asked me to go with him, and I want to- wanted to- fuck. I don't even know. He's four years older than me! I don't even have a birth certificate and _my_ fake IDs aren't going to hold up when the military asks for a social insurance number! I doubt I'd pass as a sixteen year old, forget looking old enough to graduate and enlist! So what am I supposed to do? Give up my spot in the show just to be dumped back in the system when the gillies figure out who I am? He can't be a legal guardian if he's in bootcamp and I'm not going back-" he cut off abruptly, face flushed with rage or hurt or fear or any combination of any number of things that had Bruce clenching and unclenching his fists rhythmically. It was a calming method. He stopped when Clint slapped the octo-roomba's case back in place and began to screw it shut, lips pressed tight to keep the rest of his hurt and anger bottled up.

He'd said enough to paint a pretty clear picture though: his brother had left and he was, at least by his accounts, alone.

Clint put the bot on the floor and left the room without another word.

Bruce watched the little machine glide around the large space, its limbs no longer randomly smacking things, and decided that he was finished working for the night. He'd pick up where he left off in the morning.

Clint waited until Thor had wandered off and Bruce was making noise about starting the dishes but not shifting from his slouch in the dining room chair. Tony had been distracted for pretty much the entire meal by one of his company's Action Plans Pepper had made him promise to read. Distracted, to the point that he didn't notice Clint had moved until the two photographs were gently placed between him and Steve, and Clint was tapping a finger beside the glossy images.

"Who's this?" He asked, and Tony looked at the picture. Then he looked more closely.

He didn't know how to respond at first, mainly because he wasn't sure what he was looking at. Beside him Steve was doing that thing where his eyes frowned but the rest of his face remained calm and pleasant. Tony picked the top picture off of the pile.

"His name was Phil Coulson."

Tony didn't bother pointing out that the other person in the picture was Clint. That was obvious enough despite the current age gap.

It was Phil and Clint, but not a version that Tony knew. The big smiles on both men's faces were far more real than he had ever witnessed. The arms they had flung over each other's shoulders looked familiar and comfortable and…and alive.

Tony swallowed, and looked down at the other picture that Steve hadn't touched. Bruce made no move from the other side of the large table to try and see. Bruce remained still and silent.

"So he's dead then?" Clint asked, and it was strange, because he sounded like the revelation might hurt, but he'd never met Phil. Not yet. He sounded a little like a small hope had just been obliterated.

Tony stared at the other image. It was a candid shot. They were on a couch, Clint dead to the world to the point that his mouth was hanging open and he'd tilted to the side in his sleep. He was sprawled and relaxed and slumped into Phil. Phil had a laptop on his knees, his ever-present suit jacket was missing, his tie was loose and he was eyeing Clint with an exasperated fondness that was- it was personal. It was private.

He put the picture he held back on the table and gently slid them both back to Clint.

"Yes," Steve answered, eyes tracking the images. "He died trying to stop a dangerous man from taking over the world."

"Loki," Clint said, and Tony wanted to be surprised that he knew about the god, but the kid had spent a week spying on SHIELD agents in-house, and had spent time with Thor.

"Yes." Steve agreed, because it was the truth. "He died a hero."

"Dead is dead, hero or not," Clint retorted, and there was a blankness to his words that was upsetting.

Clint had never really mentioned Coulson. Ever. Tony had just assumed he had never been close to the man.

Tony had thought he'd known Coulson, at least fairly well after all their trials and meetings, and rare gathering for drinks.

He looked back at the pictures, at the wide, warm smiles and the _looks_ on their faces. There was closeness there, a comfort that went far beyond simple acquaintances.

Apparently Phil had saved that part of himself for Clint.

And Clint had never shared.

"That's true," Steve agreed, and Tony wanted to say something sharp to him about that, because seriously? Not comforting at all! And Clint was just a kid. Sort of. But Steve had understanding carved into the corners of his eyes and a soft curve to his lips and Clint still looked like he was trying to pretend he was unaffected even as he carefully reclaimed the pictures and then quietly left the room.

Tony imagined what it would be like to lose Rhodey. To lose Pepper. He remembered his parents, and Jarvis.

He spent the rest of the night trying to improve the experimental nano-tech designed to aid in repairing torn flesh and carefully not thinking about anything else.

Natasha returned the next morning after a long night of trying to track down the one responsible for Clint's condition. It had been fruitless and it was frustrating. Slipping into the tower's common kitchen she was not surprised to find Steve; she always expected to see people in this building at any given time. She was on instant alert, however, when he looked up from the empty juice glass he was absently rolling between large hands, his eyes troubled. That level of concern always put her on alert. It had been over a year with this team now and she was still unused to the open concern her teammates were occasionally willing to show.

"What happened?" she asked, and Steve's mouth pinched in the corner.

"I never realized that Barton and Phil were close. He never said anything."

That was not what she'd been expecting, though she supposed it would have come out sooner or later. She tilted her head and he sighed, recognizing the request for more information.

"He found some pictures this morning, of him and Phil. He asked who he was."

The pictures. She hadn't thought to look for them when clearing Clint's room of his more dangerous weapons. She wouldn't have removed them anyway. Looking at Steve now it wasn't difficult to read his conflicting emotions. Confusion, regret, guilt, maybe a hint of betrayal, and soft understanding. Steve's grief had always been public, both because of lack of choice and because who he was made hiding it a foreign concept.

"Phil was his," she answered, because it was what she had always understood. Phil had been Clint's. There wasn't an adequate way to explain what had taken her, inexperienced in her own way, so many years to properly understand. Phil had been Clint's finder, his handler, his brother, father, mother, best friend, his guide, his confident, his cornerstone. Phil had been the first person Clint trusted without reservation, fear, or prejudice. In lives like theirs that was a gift so foreign that the base concept itself took years to build. _Had_ taken years to build.

Then Phil had died.

After a long moment Steve nodded. He understood. He wouldn't say anything more unless Clint brought it up.


	5. Apologies and Want

They were called out on a mission that afternoon.

It wasn't the first Avengers callout that Barton had missed, either due to injury or an alternate assignment for SHIELD that he couldn't be pulled from. Sometimes he was on other continents and couldn't just fly over like Thor might. On one memorable occasion he had apparently been on the International Space Station, but Tony had yet to find proof and Clint had not confirmed. Tony never accepted the man's self-satisfied smirks as confirmation because they were often as misleading as his words.

They were in the air before Tony remembered that Clint wasn't coming because he was miniaturized and pimply and he had a moment of panic because _they'd left him unsupervised._ Tony had been left alone a lot as a kid, but there had always been Jarvis, or house staff, or bodyguards lurking in the background (more foreground for Jarvis, but the point was the same). Kids were supposed to be watched right?

Then he caught Black Widow gazing at him with a look of sardonic amusement, apparently reading his thoughts. It was times like these he wished he'd opted for flying by himself versus riding along with the team.

"Sitwell will be coordinating the mission from the Towers communication room," she informed them at large, slipping her earpiece diligently in place, her scarlet hair falling back over to cover it. She turned her gaze to the front, where Steve and Bruce were piloting the quinjet and Tony resisted smacking his forehead. Of course Sitwell wouldn't leave Barton unguarded, the man took Clint's safety like a personal mission. Now that Tony had seen The Pictures, and recalled how close Sitwell and Coulson had been, the subtle protectiveness made a lot more sense. It didn't hurt that Sitwell and Clint were also apparently friends.

Plus, being left unsupervised wouldn't bother Clint. The kids _life_ was mostly unsupervised and self sufficient to the point where, when he declared that he could 'figure his own shit out if they would just let him go' Tony had no problem believing him.

So there was nothing to worry about after all.

Except when they came back from the fight, bruised, dirty, and a few of them covered in gore that Tony did not want to identify mingled with their own blood, Clint did not greet them in the towers hangar bay like they had expected.

Tony caught Thor and Steve looking around as they stepped off the jet in the towers hangar, and nearly rolled his eyes at the pair.

"Jarvis, where's our untamed cub gotten off to?"

"Agent Barton is on the central balcony, sir," Jarvis's cultured voice drifted softly throughout the room.

"If you guys could get up there and prove to him that you've _all_ come back, that would be appreciated," Sitwell's not so cultured voice closely followed the AI's, and after a brief pause where they interpreted what that could mean, Bruce began heading to the door.

"We're on our way, Sitwell," Steve announced, unnecessarily, but Sitwell sounded slightly less tense when he acknowledged.

Tony and Thor jumped out the still closing hangar doors and simply flew to the roof. It was faster.

Clint was sitting on the top of the giant "A" Stark had never bothered removing or replacing on the side of the building. He watched with a mostly blank, semi-angry face as they landed on the balcony not far from him, and didn't move. Tony recognized the look, it was Clint's default response to… actually Tony was beginning to suspect that this was just how Clint looked instinctively. It was the rest of the time was when the guy was putting on a show.

"So this complete lack of concern over high places is more natural than learned, am I right?" Tony grinned, sliding the faceplate back. Clint didn't seem concerned with answering as he looked them over carefully, sharp eyes flicking from head to toe. He did the same thing as an adult, though he was generally subtle enough that it had taken Tony a long time to realize that he was always being assessed. For injury, for things out of place, for signs of potential compromise…it depended on the strain of the mission and the archer's overall mood.

Right now, it was clearly for injury, the kids gaze lingered on Thor's bared arm where a streak of blood was all that remained of what had been a long, jagged cut.

"I have no fear of such great heights, but it must certainly take true bravery to conquer it when it can so easily spell your doom." Thor boomed and Tony looked at him incredulously.

"Seriously? That's what you're rolling with? Are we trying to give him a complex today?"

"Merely a compliment. I understand that is something you are more familiar with giving to yourself, but my words remain true," Thor nodded gravely, and the corner of Clint's eyes crinkled slightly, though it could be from the sharp gust of wind that was blowing his almost too long hair all over the place.

"Says the man who sings ballads about his past victories to us every chance he gets," Tony did roll his eyes this time, and then turned as he heard Bruce's familiar footsteps behind them. Their remaining teammates were almost upon them, and he looked back to Clint. The kid had to have known they were coming, but hadn't given any warning.

"You should be more aware of your surroundings," the little shit said smugly, reading Tony's reproachful look. Thor boomed a laugh as Clint apparently deemed it okay to give the rest of the team a once over. He didn't seem too happy with what he was seeing, but he was satisfied enough that nobody was dying and/or dead. Apparently in Clint's world, that was enough. His shoulders relaxed, bringing Tony's attention to the fact that they were tense in the first place.

"You finished sightseeing or are we going to hit the gym?" Natasha asked easily, tapping into her phone like Clint sequestering himself away on a ridiculously dangerous perch because he was concerned about their return, was no big deal. Clint narrowed his eyes at her.

"Shouldn't you be tired? Killing-" he eyed the greyish gore that she hadn't managed to wipe off her suit on the flight back "-things takes a bit of effort, so I've been told."

"I need a good cool down, figured sparring with you would do the trick."

It did do the trick. Clint lost the last of the uncertainty he'd been trying so hard to hide, his eyes narrowing at the challenge and a familiar sharp grin on his lips. In a quick move he was leaping off the top of the giant A, pulling some fancy twists in the air and tucking into a roll just as he hit the ground. He followed through onto his feet smoothly and looked at her as he walked past.

"I have lots of tricks, but cooling you down won't be one of them," he said on his way past, and Tony had to stop himself from laughing, because that was bad, _so bad_ , but at least Clint wasn't still stuck up on his perch thinking they wouldn't be coming back.

"This I would surely like to see, for I envision sound retribution for speaking with such crassness!" Thor declared, following them merrily while Steve sighed to himself and trailed after them. Bruce, eyes knowing and contemplative, was close on his heels.

By the time Tony flew up to his landing pad and had his armour removed, Sitwell was waiting for him just inside the glass doors. He looked the man over.

"Feel free to take this the wrong way, but you're looking a little wan. Sitting in the tower while we do all the hard work too much for you?"

Sitwell regarded him with a glare, and then an unfamiliar sigh and Tony found himself behind the bar pouring the man a quick finger of the brandy he favoured, sliding the glass across the surface. Sitwell plucked it up easily, not bothering to leave it untouched (like he generally did just to piss Tony off- Tony was on to him), and swirled the liquid gently in the glass.

"Clint had some questions about Phil," he explained, and lifted the glass to his lips, emptying it in one go. "Then decided to perch on the third most dangerous lounging spot in the building while I couldn't leave operations."

Tony contemplated pouring himself a drink, and capped the bottle instead.

"Debrief?" He asked in lieu of something more meaningful, because Sitwell wouldn't elaborate beyond that and Tony's main response would have probably been inappropriate. He tended to speak before thinking when situations were emotionally charged, so it was sometimes better to let the moment pass.

"Debrief." With a tight, relieved nod, the bald agent easily agreed, and led the way back to the designated command center.

For once, Tony didn't complain that his team had left him high and dry for the initial mission rundown. At this particular moment they were all where they needed to be.

They decided that an excursion with Clint was necessary the next day. It didn't have to be anything big, just something outside and away from the tower.

Like the park.

The park with lots of trees, and space, and things to hide around.

Tony wanted nothing to do with it; parks gave him metaphorical hives. Steve was at some charity event. Tony was distantly aware of this fact because Pepper had mentioned it while slapping his hands away when he'd tried to drag her back into bed earlier that morning. Bruce hadn't emerged from the lab yet that day and had been mumbling slightly incoherently when asked if he wanted to go. A long moment after that failed response and subsequent silence Jarvis reported that he had fallen asleep at his desk yet again.

This left Natasha, who decided that she would have no problems going to the park, so long as she remained invisible to do her super-sleuthing and keep an eye out for suspicious activity; and Thor. Thor was thrilled.

Thor was generally thrilled with any form of activity, but he seemed to have an almost worrying amount of joy when it came to "engaging in brotivities with his formidable warrior friends." Tony didn't blink at the thunder gods use of vocabulary because he was well aware that Sitwell had a 'list' of words he was subtly trying to convince the man were commonly used. Tony was about seventy percent sure that Thor was just playing along because he liked Sitwell and found 'human antics appropriately amusing.'

Regardless, letting Clint out of the tower for the first time with Thor as his main adult supervision…possibly not their best idea ever. Tony wasn't worried about Clint running away, mainly because he'd doused his breakfast (all the food in the fridge to be thorough) with nano-tech tracking-bots. They had a twenty-eight hour lifespan, and seeing as it would probably take about thirty hours before Clint's body ejected them there was no way Clint could pull a disappearing act.

He _could_ , however, apparently convince Thor that it was perfectly acceptable to 'borrow' two horses from the mounted police for a little joy ride.

Tony had no idea how Clint managed to get the mounted officers off the horses in the first place, or gotten Thor onto one without him realizing how unimpressed the officers would be.

He found out about it when Jarvis displayed a video that had made the news with Clint cantering up a path in central park on one of the beasts- in a handstand.

Fortunately the videographer didn't get Clint's face in profile due to the image being slightly blurred from the haste of recording and Clint's inverted back facing the camera operator. Through some miracle they didn't capture Thor on camera at all.

By the time Sitwell had sorted everything out with the cops (apparently 'national security emergency' went a long way when certain badges were flashed, despite everyone knowing it was utter bullshit) Clint had been hauled back to the tower by a silent Natasha. Tony wondered who was supposed to do the whole 'right-from-wrong' and 'make-better-life-decisions' speech, because he could confidently point out that he was most definitely _not_ the obvious choice for that one; Clint had just made his _week_ with that act and he was going to frame the digital recording, set the video to replay on a loop, and put it up on the wall somewhere so he could see it everyday in passing.

Apparently no words were needed in the end however, because it was clear that once Thor realized what was going on he had been visibly upset. Hurt even, and his subdued responses to Clint once they were back in the tower were enough to have the teen flush briefly (Tony had never seen Clint do that before) and slip away quietly with hunched shoulders.

When he didn't show up for dinner, and Jarvis softly informed them that Clint was in the training gym, Tony quietly followed Thor through the tower and stopped just inside the large rooms door. Clint was on the center mats. He had a short training weapon in hand and was tumbling about, swinging it in controlled, fierce movements, like a sword. His dark blonde hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, and he'd foregone a shirt in favour of just workout pants. For all his youth and almost excessive leanness he looked dangerous; his wiry muscles tight from the work, his focus intense as he executed tight jabs and controlled, slices with the mock-sword.

Tony knew that Barton's file had 'experienced with blade fighting' listed, but this was more than he'd expected. He also knew that the digital files on both Barton and Romanov were missing large chunks of history. He suspected that information was written in hardcopy somewhere, which meant he'd probably never see it unless he could find a plausible reason to blow a hole in the wall of SHIELD's "Top Secret Spy" filing room and take a peek through the paper files.

"I'll be better," Clint announced suddenly, stopping in the middle of the mat, weapon flipped up to press vertically against his shoulder. Beside Tony, Thor tensed. Clint looked at him, a momentary flare of unease flashing across his too expressive face, before adapting a practiced look of sincerity. The only thing Tony could clearly read in the look was the uncertainty he was trying to hide.

"I'm sorry," he leveled his gaze on Thor, and then shifted it to Tony and then back to Thor, "and I'll be better," he repeated, firmly. Tony very carefully did not clench his fists and launch into an enraged rant while he tried to figure out what was happening here, or more specifically what Clint thought was happening. He had an inkling of the teen's beliefs and he wasn't a fan.

"Do you know what it is you are apologizing for?" Thor asked softly, and Clint hesitated, cogs turning in his head as he no doubt searched for the answer he thought they wanted.

"I embarrassed you," he finally said, like it was obvious.

"Embarrassment is something I have experienced in far more severity, and of my own ilk, long before today. That is not what concerns me," Thor kept his tone just as soft, soothing despite the stern command beneath it. Sometimes Tony forgot Thor was being groomed to be a king, and then he'd pull out a _tone_ that made him want to squirm in appeasement even though he'd done nothing wrong.

Clint apparently didn't feel the same way. Then again, the more authoritative a figure, the more Clint seemed to distrust them. He narrowed his eyes, the same coolness that had been present the first day he'd been turned into a teen coming to the forefront. Guarded, disinterested, confrontational. _Scared._

Thor continued after a pause.

"What I wish to know is why you would mislead me in such a way? Have I done something to bring your resentment upon me?" Clint didn't seem to expect that, and clearly didn't want to answer, so he looked to Tony with his cold stare once more in place.

"Where are you gonna send me?" he asked Tony, clearly making the next _completely_ _logical_ jump in conversation. Sadly, Tony wasn't surprised by Clint's apparent expectations, not after their limited conversations and, more tellingly, the kid's general behaviour up to this point.

"Nowhere." Tony responded instantly, hoping to shut down Clint's line of thought, but judging by the continued suspicious look he wasn't sold on the idea.

"Sounds boring. Think I'd rather pick my own destination."

"Yeah, 'cause you've done a bang-up job of that so far. Remind me again whether or not your circus guardians fed you last night," Tony sneered, and regretted it when Clint's eyes unfocused, his shoulders slumped and forehead scrunched up. Tony recognized the look from when Clint became caught up in his 'other current life.'

His past, his present…messed up didn't begin to cover it.

The kid came back to himself pretty quickly, but he blinked a few times as he refocused on Tony and Thor. He shifted back a step, losing his perfect resting stance and took a breath. "You okay?" Tony asked, concerned, and that seemed to bring Clint back to them fully if his renewed piercing gaze was a decent indicator.

"If I need a meal I'll get it; I don't need hand outs," he snapped, and moved back into his stiff resting stance. Tony was no sword fighter, but he didn't mistake the stillness for idleness.

"No, what you _need_ is to stop thinking we're going to kick you out because you're acting like a moron," Tony waved a hand to encompass all of Clint but the teen's suspicious look didn't falter.

"If that were true you would have had to kick yourself out a long time ago," Clint agreed, and smirked, pulling his crowd-pleasing smile out for them.

"This is not a matter for cutting jests," Thor intoned, and Clint turned his sharp, guarded, blue gaze back to the god. "You will not be cast aside for mistakes, intentional or otherwise," because the thing with the horses? It didn't get much more intentional than that. "Nor shall you be harmed when we are unpleased or hurt by your actions. You do not need to continue testing our resolve in this," Thor's posture softened, becoming more open than he generally was and Clint's eyes had widened in what Tony interpreted as alarm. "You have a place here and we shall not go back on our promises despite your attempts to turn our opinions."

Well. That was pretty much hitting the nail on the head.

"You're stupid if you think you can trust me," Clint warned with the severity of a kid believing there was no other truth.

"Nay, I doubt that very much." Thor stated solemnly. "Come join us for a meal and lets put these negativities to rest." Clint looked back at Tony, like he was still expecting to be shipped back to SHIELD, or somewhere a thousand times worse, despite their denials. Tony rolled his eyes and left the room before he decided to do a number on the punching bag himself.

"I am sorry, Thor," Clint mumbled after he'd wrestled back into his shirt, halfway back to the kitchen where their team was waiting.

"I accept your apology," Thor decreed with majestic severity. Clint was quiet that night at dinner, but he didn't scurry off to hide right after and Thor was back in jovial spirits- you know, when he wasn't casting sad hang-dog looks at Clint whenever the archer wasn't looking.

All in all, it was a pretty typical night for when everyone was actually around.

It wasn't her job to pay attention to other people's sartorial choices. Pepper was self-aware enough to know that she had a certain taste and standard that she held herself to that was of a higher class, but she had always strived to not judge others by their clothing (to a point at least). She'd learned over the years (mostly since becoming associated with SHIELD, but also from previous business dealings) that clothes could be wielded as well as words when it came to misleading people about intentions or character. Aside from that she hadn't always had the money she sometimes felt she was drowning in now, and could appreciate a good discount as well as the next avid shopper.

The point being that it wasn't her job to notice how people dressed, but she did regardless. Then there were the times when she felt she had a personal stake in noticing.

Like Tony in his over worn band-shirts, thin and sometimes torn in places, that she loved.

Like Natasha, and how nobody could ever predict what she was going to put on for the day because it depended entirely on what she wanted people to believe, and how much she wanted to control her environment.

Like this teenager Clint had been turned back into, who had been given an entire wardrobe of clothing in his size, and had been wearing the same pair of black cargo pants since he'd moved in, a dark-blue hooded sweatshirt, and only two different shirts (if you disregarded the lime green shirt he'd worn the first day). According to Jarvis he was washing them in his bathroom's sink, switching between the long and short sleeves as necessary. She thought about pointing out that he had a washing machine he was welcome to use, or that he could add it to the pile of laundry that they sent out bi-weekly to be washed by Tony's personal service.

Pepper didn't say a thing. It wasn't her business, and Clint had always made a point of being completely self-sufficient.

It wrenched at something in her though, because she knew that Clint hadn't touched the rest of the clothes that had been given to him. He had probably left them exactly where she had placed them on top of his dresser, ready for him to put away wherever he wanted. Ready for when he decided it was okay to have a little more. To trust that it was his.

She noticed, and she didn't say a thing about it. If anyone else noticed they also kept it to themselves. Sometimes even noticing these small details felt like noticing too much.

Almost two weeks after Clint had "transferred" to stay at the Tower, Sitwell came-a-knocking. Officially he was there to give them an update on SHIELD's projects that they were cleared to know about and plan some training scenarios with Steve. He was also there to inform them that the SHIELD higher ups were beginning to make a bit of a stink about Clint's continued absence from their facilities; and by higher ups they meant the folks that Fury occasionally deigned to report to: the World Security Council. Apparently it had taken them a few weeks to cotton on to Clint's chrono-change, and they were questioning the Avengers' custodial rights.

Unofficially, Sitwell said some very impolite things about people he'd never personally met, picked absently at a bandage that peeked out from under his suit jacket's sleeve, and frowned into the liter-sized mug of coffee he'd poured before sitting at the meeting room's table. Sitwell always brought his own mug to meetings at the Tower, because apparently he felt rude just drinking directly from the pot and none of the mugs Tony provided were ever large enough.

"There's not a _lot_ of chatter about Clint staying here at the moment," he warned with a pinched look, foot nudging the near silent octo-roomba that was trying to edge under the table, "but the fact that there's chatter at all leads us to believe that they're trying to gently ease into the topic."

"Ease into it," Steve stopped twirling his pen between his fingers and set it on the table, "as in they're setting the groundwork for something we probably won't like."

Sitwell saluted Steve with his mug, and pushed away from the table so he could stand.

"We're looking in to why they'd want rights to him, because with them it could be anything from containing an asset, to a mission specific outcome. Fury suspects they want him for an age sensitive infiltration." The sour look on the agent's face spoke volumes about how he felt about that. "Be prepared, because we don't know where this might lead."

None of them were happy with his parting statement.

Tony was happily arguing with Bruce about creating a moldable high polymer iron oxide granule substance that wouldn't need magnetism to stabilize it, when Jarvis politely interrupted by activating his wall sized monitor across the room. Both men stopped, and Bruce pushed his glasses up to settle more comfortably on his nose as he blinked at the massive screen.

It was Clint and Natasha, training. With swords. Katanas, actually, the metal catching and reflecting silver-grey in the natural light that filtered in from the massive floor to ceiling windows that his Tower boasted.

They weren't sparring against each other yet, but judging by the tight looks Clint kept sending Natasha, and the way they both seemed battle ready, Tony doubted it would be long before they turned their blades on each other in the name of practice.

"Huh," Bruce eloquently stated, put down his Starktablet, and then looked at Tony out of the corner of his eye expectantly. What he was expecting was anyone's guess. It was hard to tell with Bruce sometimes.

Tony, for his part, was imagining cuts and blood and dismembered limbs and nearly cringed when Clint dove into a roll and popped up in one of those twisty flips he was so fond of- with A SWORD in his hand.

"This- this isn't safe? Is this safe? Weren't we questioning giving him steak knives at dinner just a few weeks ago?" he jabbed a hand at the live-feed.

"I'm sure Natasha knows what she's doing," Bruce unhelpfully appeased after a pause.

" _Natasha_ tried to instigate a knife throwing competition with Thor and Clint three nights ago in the common room. I'm not sure I trust her teenager-rearing judgment."

"If I may inform you sir, Captain Rogers and Agent Sitwell are viewing the proceedings in person."

"That does not make me feel better at all," he muttered, and wandered away to the back room, grumbling under his breath as he went directly to the table tucked in the far corner. He snatched up the recurve bow he'd finished putting together three days ago, and had forgotten about until now, strung it, and grabbed the cardboard tube lying stuffed with arrows beside it. The bright green fletching knocked about at the abrupt treatment.

He stormed back into the other room, and right to the elevator, where he proceeded to ignore Bruce as the man joined him, his interest bright on his face as he glanced at the bow meaningfully. Tony ignored him, but shoved the makeshift quiver into his friend's chest so he wouldn't have to carry both items, which just made Bruce smile at him as he wrapped a hand around the solid cardboard tube.

Jarvis opened the door to the training dojo while they were still twenty feet away, and Tony stormed in the room prepared to see razor-sharp swords clashing and limbs being severed and flopping about on the floor.

What he found was Sitwell working at a punching bag in the far corner with Steve holding it for him, and Natasha and Clint not fighting with swords. Yet. The bloodshed was bound to start soon and no, just no.

Everyone had stopped what they were doing as soon as Tony and Bruce barged in the large space and were waiting patiently for an explanation. Except for Clint. Clint was staring at the bow in Tony's hands. Clint was staring and it was the first time Tony had seen him look at anything with that much _want._ Tony should have brought this to the kid days ago.

"There will be _no dismembering_ in this building until we are all of age," he announced to cover for the silence that had fallen and was aimed at him. Natasha's lips twitched in brief amusement from her spot on the mat and she shifted her weapon so the edge subtly caught the light. Tony ignored her in favour of watching Clint, who had apparently remembered that he didn't like to advertise his emotions and was pointedly not staring at the bow anymore.

"What constitutes as the acceptable age for dismemberment?" Sitwell asked, wiping at the sweat on his shiny bald head with a towel.

"The fact that potential dismemberment is a topic that I even have to broach with serious intent in the sanctity of our home makes me worry for our survival. The fact that our SHIELD babysitter thinks the most prudent concern on the topic is age specification," Tony flapped his free hand distressingly, which had Sitwell's eyebrows quirk in amusement. "This makes me think there's a conspiracy involved somewhere. I'm considering revoking your access, Sitwell. Don't think I won't," Tony threatened. From beside the agent, Steve huffed an amused laugh. Betrayer.

"I'm not a kid," Clint apparently needed to add his own two-cents, and then did a fancy twirly vaguely figure-eight shaped thing with his sword. Tony nearly stepped back, in case the teen dropped it. He liked his toes where they were, thank you very much. "And I've been told I look younger than I am."

"Grow some facial hair and we'll revisit this conversation _never,_ " Tony decided and glared at the sword that was making him so nervous. He knew Clint could handle it. He knew that even at fourteen Clint's psychomotor abilities would have professionals clambering over themselves to try and determine exactly how into genius level gifted he was. Tony wasn't going to take the sword away, because first of all that would be mean and counter productive, and second of all Clint was not a child despite being, well, basically still a child.

Tony just didn't like swords.

That was all there was to it.

"Also," Tony continued, ignoring the way Natasha looked amused despite her lack of smile, "I refuse to bring in professionals to clean the blood that will be spilt with your fight club Olympic level knife-capades," he finished, feeling that he had gotten his point across well enough, if only because Natasha hated the thought of letting people she didn't know onto the Avengers' floors for any reason. Clint looked like he wasn't getting the point though, which Tony had suspected would happen because it was both Clint Barton and a teenager in one.

No matter. Tony didn't come here to prevent bloodshed with the prosaic solution of simply ordering them to not try and maim each other with steel that was probably forged by dragon fire in the pits of hell. Tony came with a _distraction_. Distractions had the added benefit of people thinking that the change in their plans was a choice they made and not a premeditated calculation.

Tony was smart like that.

Before Clint could comment on what he thought of Tony's thoughts of his sword fighting abilities, Tony held the bow out in the kid's direction.

Clint shut his mouth with a swift, audible click, and jerked to stare at the tool with that clear _want_ once more. He didn't move forward to take it though, so Tony waggled it slightly in the air.

"You waiting for a gilded invitation? I finished it the other day, it should be more suited to your strength than the ones your adult self handles, but we won't know for sure until you try it out."

Clint twisted suddenly and sprinted to the room's far wall, all but slapping the sword he'd been using back into its sheath and laying it against the wall, before he was back in front of Tony. He reached out slowly, like he expected Tony to maybe pull the bow away at any moment and tell him he was just joking, so Tony pressed it forward into his hands. He hated the wide eyed look Clint gave him as he stepped back, bow clutched carefully as he put some space between them and looked it over with greedy eyes.

"I take it you know how to use this then?" Tony asked, because he really didn't know how old Clint was when he started training with the archaic weapon, and when he'd found Clint, all kid-like and running away, he had abandoned his recurve with his boots. Tony had thought he'd left it because the draw strength needed to use it was beyond any teen's capabilities no matter how pumped up on steroids and strength training they were. Most adults couldn't handle it either.

"Yeah," Clint answered Tony's question almost absently, focused as he ran his fingers over the dull black grip. Tony hadn't thought to add colour to it because Clint always demanded his tools be dark and finished in a matte that would never reflect the light. He wondered now if he should have put flames on it or something.

"So your solution to prevent potential bloodshed is to replace one weapon with another?" Sitwell was mocking Tony. He appeared genuinely interested in an answer to his question, but he was covertly mocking. Tony was on to him.

"Strangely enough I'm okay with this," Tony waved the agent off and then looked at Clint. "We'll need to make sure the arrows are the right length; I don't want you shooting yourself through the hand."

"Can we do it now?" Clint asked, and looked up from the bow to Tony eagerly, and the answer was no. He had work to finish, and he'd accomplished his immediate goal and given the kid the bow. His job was done here, and he had important things to do in his shop…

"Yeah, sure, it's not like I have things to create or companies to run," he said instead, because how could he say no when there was actual expressing of genuine interest taking place? Clint was already bounding out of the gym, sword practice with Natasha forgotten and Sitwell flicked his wrist like he was wielding a whip. Tony ignored him, which wasn't difficult.

"No explosive arrow heads," Steve warned, but it was clearly more of a joke than actual order, because Steve was under the misconception that he was funny. It was kind of tragic. Tony ignored him as well and joined Clint in the range.

Judging by the way Clint handled the bow, he hadn't been doing this as long as he was pretending he had. He still managed to get the yellow dot almost every time. Tony put away the distant thoughts of maybe hiring an instructor, and settled in to watch.


	6. Flash Forward

"I'm sorry about your parents."

The words drifted through the dimly lit space, breaking the silence that had built around them over the hours and Tony looked over to where the Clint stood. He blinked slowly, allowing his eyes adjust to the new distance now that he wasn't nose deep in wires, circuit boards, and the War Machine's diagnostic readouts. He took in the kid's profile. He might have called the scene dramatic, what with the massive floor to ceiling windows and the glow of city lights that spilt through the thick glass; but there was too much light emanating from the computer displays and dimmed overheads around Tony's workbench, and it wrecked any kind of back-light effect.

Clint wasn't swathed in shadow, wasn't looming the way he tried to whenever he stood still in daylight. He wasn't fidgeting with tightly contained energy, his eyes weren't constantly moving to keep track of everything in the room, and the general air of mistrust he draped himself in was apparently taking a back seat to hunched shoulders and a distant gaze.

Tony wondered if he shouldn't be concerned that the kid, too skinny and too tired and too old, wasn't in bed getting that much needed rest that people were always telling Tony was necessary to survival. He wondered if he should act like the temporary guardian he was supposed to be and order the kid off to sleep. But that would be a bit hypocritical, and if there was anything he'd learned living with the teen, it was that Clint didn't need to be told what to do.

Clint would probably laugh in his face if Tony even tried, like it was funny that somebody cared.

"My parents?" Tony asked after a long silence, and was thankful that his voice didn't sound rough after so many hours of disuse. He would have rolled his eyes at himself for repeating such an obvious statement, but he was too busy trying to figure out the kid's angle.

Clint didn't look away from what he was staring at out the window, which must have been fascinating with the intensity he was devoting to the act. They were seventy-six floors into the sky; there was a lot to potentially see out there…in the dark.

"Yeah," Clint mumbled, and hesitated to say more. He did that far more often than Tony liked- if Tony cared to pay attention, which he generally tried not to do. "First time I saw you, back at the hospital? I knew who you were; you're face is-" he paused and huffed with irritation. "Your face _was_ on the cover of all the newspapers and magazines almost daily since their accident. I'd have to be a moron to not recognize you at the hospital. But were older and…it didn't make sense." Tony hadn't considered that Clint might recognize him when he clearly didn't know who Natasha was, which was stupid because everyone recognized Tony, but still... "Sucks that they're dead," Clint decided after a long pause.

Tony almost laughed reflexively. Almost. He was more focused on trying to process why this conversation was happening and working to keep anything resembling an emotion as far away as possible.

"They died when I was seventeen," Tony pointed out, gesturing with the stylus clutched between his callused fingertips to help make his point.

His parents and Jarvis had died almost twenty years ago.

Clint tore his gaze away from the city lights long enough to give Tony a reproachful look, like he was being a moron. He supposed to Clint it might seem like a month ago.

"Still sucks," Clint shrugged, turning back to the glass, and Tony stared at the back of his head for a long, hard minute.

It had been twenty years, and he'd heard a lot of platitudes over that time; mostly from people who wanted to get into, or remain in, his good graces because he'd been their only child (as far as he knew) and there had been millions to inherit. Clint's words, delivered with the bluntness Tony had learned to expect from him, were some of the most honest he could remember receiving.

From a boy who had mastered lying better than most of the cutthroat business people, politicians, and spies Tony had been forced to associate with, it meant something.

"Yeah, it does suck." Tony swallowed thickly.

He wondered if he could go back to his work now, and absently knuckled at his left eye.

He wondered if he should offer the kid a cookie in reward for saying something nice, regardless of the randomness. Positive reinforcement was apparently all the rage.

"You miss them?" Clint asked right after Tony had decided it was okay to focus back on the mess of tech spread across his usually organized table. Tony slowly put down the gauntlet he was poking at and picked up his coffee mug to stall for time. The dregs of what he'd forgotten to drink earlier were cold but wet, and it did the job.

"Sometimes," he admitted, maybe a bit more sharply than he intended, but Clint never seemed to react to tones of irritation unless it was to try and aggravate his target some more. He didn't react now. He didn't say anything. Tony wondered how silence from a fourteen-year old boy was more imposing to a man on the far side of thirty, than the two psychiatrists he'd been forced to visit after his parents car accident.

Those doctors had never tried silence.

"We weren't close," Tony finally admitted, and noticed the way the kid seemed to tense, like this is what he'd been waiting for. "I spent a lot of time away at school, and when I was home I was a bit of a shit," he shrugged, because he didn't think it was healthy to get into the details of how he could never focus, how he always needed to be doing something, how he'd been a lot to handle. Clint didn't need that kind of information. "But yeah, I miss them, I guess. Mostly I miss the idea of them." They'd left him with everything he could possibly need to live comfortably; they'd left him with the keys to the kingdom. He'd wasted a lot of time wishing he'd known them better and then made the decision to stop, because he couldn't change the past and he'd learned that focusing on it too much made it difficult to move forward. He didn't think about it much anymore.

"I don't miss my parents," Clint announced in the quiet, and Tony didn't know how to react to that.

"Okay," he said, ineloquently, and wondered where his lifetime of training in socialism had suddenly fluttered off. Mostly he was floored that the kid was sharing something so personal in the first place.

"I tried to miss them," Clint carried on, and he sounded distant. Aloof. Uncaring. "Tried to feel bad that they were dead, especially after my brother and I ran away from the state-home, but I think it was better that they-" he cut himself off, and the hand that Tony could see was clenched into a tight fist, knuckles a bloodless white easily seen from across the room. "I don't fucking miss them. I don't even miss the idea of them," he decided fiercely, and crossed his arms over his too skinny chest, shrouded in a dark blue hoodie that was a bit too big.

"It sucks," Tony said after another long moment, and Clint snorted. It wasn't necessarily a disagreement.

"Whatever," he muttered, shoulders stiff.

Tony nearly pointed out that he wasn't the one that started this conversation, but Clint turned away from the window and made for the door that would let him back into the elevators.

Tony sat in the quiet workspace and stared at War Machine's slowly rotating schematics. He looked at the area that had a red highlight glowing over it, displaying a weakness he had found in the suit, and realized that he'd lost all interest in working any more that night. He went to bed, curled around Pepper, and tried to sleep.

They'd run past the halfway mark on Stark Towers internal stairs, when Clint froze between the landings, one hand reaching out to grasp the hot-rod red railings to steady himself. He was gasping, breath heavier than it had been moments before, and Steve jerked to a halt right behind him, grabbing the railing himself to stop the momentum they'd built racing up the stairs before he crashed into his teammate.

Clint was hunched over, pressing a hand to his head, and Steve was instantly worried; they'd run the stairwell for exercise on several different occasions and Clint had never reacted like this. Instinct had Steve wanting to put an assessing hand on Clint's shoulder, but instead he moved closer to the staircases clean white wall so he could angle for a better look at Clint without touching him. Putting himself more directly into Clint's line of sight.

"Clint?" Steve asked, and didn't get a chance to say anything else as Clint lashed out, violent and sharp and unexpected. Super soldier or not, the impact of the focused elbow that drove into his throat was heavy and painful enough that he retreated down two steps to give himself space to reassess. Taking that brief moment to move was a miscalculation, as Clint had already turned fully to face him. Distantly Steve noted that the stairs elevation made their heights equal, but it was a fleeting thought. Clint reached out to either side of him, hands wrapped tightly on the bold red railings that lined the stairwell, and used the support to lift both legs off the ground and kick solidly into Steve's chest.

Steve went flying backwards down the stairs, arms spread wide as if to catch himself mid-air, the familiar feeling of weightlessness engulfing him for a brief moment before his back slammed hard into the concrete landing below. The air was knocked from his lungs, his head smacked hard enough that for a brief moment he saw stars, and his legs were sprawled awkwardly up the stairs.

He blinked the spots from his vision at the same time that he pulled in a deep breath, the ache in his head, shoulders, and lower back were already becoming a distant memory. He shifted up onto his elbows, the cement pressing cold all along his forearms, and refocused up the stairs. Clint was staring down at him, skin washed white with shock and horror in his eyes. The horror disappeared as soon as the teen realized Steve was staring at him, but his skin remained pale even as he dropped one hand to curl by his hip in a fist.

There was a long moment of silence in the stairwell and Steve didn't move from where he was awkwardly sprawled, not even to bend his elevated legs into a more comfortable position.

"Holy shit," Clint finally muttered, under his breath but Steve had better hearing than most; and the stairwell was dead silent otherwise, which left no ambient noise to swallow the comment.

"Are you all right?" Steve asked, not moving. Clint stared down at him and said nothing.

"Clint?" he asked again, because he needed to know it was okay for him to move now; that he wouldn't upset Clint by getting up. He wasn't worried about defending himself, because Clint had dropped him like a sack of potatoes, sure, but aside from the initial shock he'd barely felt it. He was fine. Clint- Clint was obviously not. "Are you okay?" Steve asked, softer now, and Clint finally reacted: with a frown.

"Am _I_ okay? I'm not the one that just got- what are you- why'd you let me do that?" he went from incredulous, to confused, to angry and Steve very slowly pulled his legs down so he could shift to his side and sit up.

"Funny, but I don't recall _letting_ you do anything, you just did it," Steve pointed out, carefully, but with a hint of amusement that he hoped would show Clint he wasn't upset. Also, showing concern generally put the teen on the defensive, and right now Steve didn't want Clint to shut him out.

One thing he was pretty certain about was that Clint had attacked him without thought. He wanted to know where the sudden, desperate, need to lash out had come from.

Clint frowned, staring hard at Steve, and then he glanced over his shoulder up to the next landing. His attention drifted from the door, down to the landing Steve was sat on, patiently waiting, and back to where his own hand gripped the railing tightly. His breathing was calming down, but the corner of his eyes were pinched in a confusion he was trying to conceal.

"Clint?" Steve tried again and Clint's attention snapped back to him, and he swallowed thickly as Steve finally pushed to his feet. His nostrils flared as he took a deep breath, trying to appear calm, and he loosened his grip on the red metal, ready to flee but not wanting to draw too much attention. One of the guys in Steve's unit had been like that, always ready to take action, never relaxing, and always trying to hide it. Bucky had been like that: brash and confident and hiding in plain sight. Steve swallowed, and put thoughts of his best friend away for later.

"I didn't mean to-" he seemed at a loss for how to politely say 'knock a grown man who was literally twice his size, on his ass.' Most likely because he was trying to not make Steve angrier than he assumed he already was.

"You didn't know what you were doing," Steve soothed, but with a no-nonsense tone. "I'm fine, and I'm not angry."

"Well maybe you should be!" Clint snarled, and Steve stilled, taken aback at the sudden anger and defiant stance.

"It was an accident," Steve calmly pointed out, which apparently just made Clint angrier.

"You know that for sure, huh?" Clint snapped, blue eyes flashing. "Don't think I could put you down on purpose? Think a useless runt like me wouldn't stand a chance? You don't know shit."

"Then why don't you tell me how it is," Steve put a little snap in his voice, changing tactics, and Clint glared, practically bared his teeth in an angry snarl.

"I've dropped bigger men than you in the dirt. I've broken their bones, made them bleed; made them beg. I've been thrown into dog pits and survived. I've had people in my sight, people who deserved to be there, and let them walk when I should have- I _should_ have-" his breath hitched and his teeth snapped together with a painful click, and he sort of crumbled onto the stairs, burying his face in his hands, his dark blonde hair spiked from sweat. He didn't hold the position long, no doubt uncomfortable not being able to see his surroundings, and looked back to Steve with wide, uncertain eyes. Waiting.

"This wasn't your fault." Steve said again, firmly and as calmly as he could.

"Would you be saying that if it was Tony I kicked down the stairs? Or Sitwell? What about Pepper? They wouldn't get up like you can," his voice cracked on the last word, but he kept staring at Steve, daring him to disagree. So Steve disagreed.

"This was an accident, and not your fault. We're not in the habit of blaming people for things out of their control, and I'm not blaming you now." Steve waited a moment, uncertain if he should say more, but wanting to. In the end Steve generally always did what he wanted, and it usually worked out. "Nobody's going to punish you for this." _Nobody's going to hurt you_ was his unspoken promise.

Clint stared at him for a long time, and Steve was just glad that he'd become familiar enough with Clint's piercing, weighted gaze as an adult because it made it easier to handle from his younger self. Sort of. Steve was learning too many reasons for the staring, and it was unsettling on such a young face.

Clint broke contact and looked at his hands. He scratched at his throat, and rolled his neck side to side.

"I thought you were…I thought-" he looked frustrated, and concerned, and a little afraid. "I thought I was being chased by- ninjas," he said slowly. "Or people dressed all in dark blue with masks and swords. Does that make sense to you?"

No, that made no sense to Steve whatsoever. He dealt with the fear he assumed Clint was feeling more strongly than he was showing, considering how he'd reacted to Steve earlier.

"They're not here now, we're the only ones in the stairwell and this is probably the most secure building in the city. You've never mentioned anything about blue ninjas to me, but that doesn't mean that they don't exist."

"You think it was a memory?" Clint frowned and rubbed at the corner of his left eye. "How can I remember something I've never done?" He sounded concerned now, tired. Steve felt a shiver of apprehension twist through him.

"Have you had memories like this before?" He asked, and Clint looked at him, and then looked away at his shoes. "Clint? This could be important."

"Maybe," he muttered. "It's hard to keep it straight sometimes," he pointed at his head and wiggled a finger, scowling as he glared at Steve, as though daring him to call him a liar or something. Steve made very sure that his worry was not visible to Clint, and pressed his back more solidly into the cold wall so he didn't move closer in an instinctive attempt to comfort. Steve was a hands on kind of guy, in training and battle, but not really all that physical outside of those situations. Wanting to be closer to comfort a teenaged Clint, who had a spiky exterior harder than the Hulk's skin, shouldn't be his first reaction. Alarmingly, all Steve ever wanted to do around the kid was shovel food into his too skinny body and make him put on a sweater. Clint would not take that kind of molly-coddling well. Steve never had when he was young, either.

"Can you explain that a little more for me? I'm not sure I understand." Which wasn't true, but Steve wanted to be sure he wasn't misunderstanding what Clint was saying.

"Look, I'm here with you, right now. On these stairs. But I'm also," he squinted at his hands. "I'm also helping set up for the hammock act. The aerialists' want to practice before the show tonight, and Jac lost a bet to them last week so I have to help out. It used to be Barney's job-" he cut himself off sharply, shook his head, and dragged in a breath. "And then there were _ninjas_ chasing me, but they were only here for like, a second, and I can't even remember how many there were or _anything_ about them, and now it's just you and me, but it's also Rosa complaining about the carabiner being larry and she wants me to climb up there and get it fixed already."

Steve could practically taste the frustration from Clint's tone, but the kid just took a deep breath, forced his shoulders to relax, and looked back at Steve.

"So there are some things I've…done? Seen? But I don't think I've actually done or seen yet, so I'm never really sure if they've actually happened or if it's just a dream, so I ignore it."

Steve feels like he's been kicked in the chest by the kid all over again.

"Are you okay?" he asked, unable to keep the concern from his tone this time, but Clint doesn't fall back to his default-angry-glare. Instead he shrugs, like it's no big deal. Like actively experiencing two lives at once is no big deal. Steve hadn't realized Clint's other life was so close to his current level of consciousness.

"I'm fine. It's usually pretty easy to remain here, this is where I _am_ , but sometimes I get a bit confused. It's nothing I can't handle."

"So what you were saying earlier, about breaking bones, and the dog pit," Steve brought it up now, because Clint might not be in a sharing mood anymore in a few minutes, and he needed answers when he could get them. "What was that?"

"That?" Clint suddenly looks a little sick, and then he starts to gather his shroud of cockiness about him again. "That's just training with Jac," he had gone still as he said this, and that gave away his strained nerves. "It's like- a Tuesday morning."

"That's not training for your performance, Clint. What's he training you for?"

"Don't worry about it," he growled, defenses back up and, yep, there was the glare.

"I can't help what I worry about," Steve pointed out, which seemed to throw Clint off his game again. Two weeks as a teenager with them and he still didn't know how to grasp that someone might genuinely care.

"I'll let you in on a secret, Cap," Clint pushed to his feet and rolled his shoulders, "worrying doesn't pay the bills, and giving a shit about other people just gives them an edge over you. Don't waste your time worrying, and let's finish this run, because Thor was going to teach me how to throw a spear and I don't want to miss it."

Steve had the odd sense that Clint already knew how to throw a spear, he was just using the excuse to spend time with the god. Then again, he was still fourteen, and there were a lot of things Clint hadn't learned yet. Kindness, apparently, was one of them.

When they finished their race up the stairs Clint was panting loudly and sweat darkened his shirt, but he was grinning again. Steve felt like he'd just finished warming up. Tony 'conveniently' happened to be passing the stairwell's door at the same time that they burst through it.

Clint barely spared him a glance, taking a moment to nod at Steve before stalking off to find Thor. Steve watched him go, anxiety heavy in his chest. He looked back to find Tony looking at him with a frown, before the billionaire gave a nod of his own head and walked off down the hall. Steve followed without hesitation, and marched down the curved stairs into Tony's private lab, to find Bruce and Natasha already waiting.

"Jarvis told us Clint was having some kind of memory lapse," Tony explained as he basically collapsed into a cushy couch that had no business being in a lab. "We listened in to your little heart-to-heart, hope you don't mind," he smirked. Before Steve could get offended by the breach of privacy Bruce joined the conversation.

"Jarvis only played us Clint's explanation of how he's in two places at once, nothing more," he said with a distracted air, focused on the thin glass computer screen before him. Steve thought that over, and then looked at Tony with a bit of surprise; he hadn't expected that level of consideration given the situation at hand. Clint drop kicking Steve down a flight of stairs was a pretty viable excuse for listening to every word, whether Steve liked it or not.

Tony must have understood what Steve was thinking because he made a face that Steve could only describe as a disgusted pout, and crossed his arms over his chest. The dark blue material of his shirt bunched over his reactor, concealing the faint glow.

"Pepper explained personal boundaries and privacy rights to Jarvis last week," he grumbled, only half irritated, "and he's refused to give up the dirt ever since."

Steve relaxed a little at that, and made a note to thank Jarvis for his discretion later. If Clint wanted to share anything he'd said to Steve, he would tell them himself. Chances were pretty slim of that ever happening.

"Do we believe Clint's memories are coming back?" he asked instead of responding to Tony, whom he was well aware was more interested in Clint's situation than actual gossip. Tony was acting more protective of the kid than anyone had anticipated.

"It sounds like it's a possibility," Bruce looked away from his screen and at Natasha expectantly. "Blue ninjas in a stairwell. Sound familiar?"

She nodded minimally, and didn't shift from where she was leaning against the table.

"Samsun, Turkey," she said.

Their gazes remained steady on her, expecting more, and she stared back balefully.

"It's classified," she said after a stretch of silence, "and it was before Clint and I worked together."

"So he's having flash-forwards," Tony sounded like he was torn between being elated and worried and Steve knew how the man felt, "and is apparently living a lot closer to his first childhood than he's been letting on. The way I understood it initially, he was adapting the _memories_ of his childhood to his present, not feeling like he was living in both places at once. This sounds like something we need to be seriously concerned about. Like 'his mind could break him' concerned."

"It might mean that what ever made him like this is beginning to wear off, and the definitive separation between his past, present and future's past" Bruce rubbed at his eye as he spoke, looking pained, "is beginning to blur because his body is trying to realign," he frowned. "I think we should get more bio-cultures and see if there's any change in his molecular structure. There wasn't any visible change two days ago, but it doesn't hurt to check."

"We need to update SHIELD as well," Steve resisted pressing his fingers into his temple like he used to when warding off headaches. He didn't get headaches anymore, unless something very heavy connecting with his skull caused them.

"Fury's made some noise about wanting Clint in for another medical exam." Natasha glared at Tony before the man could outright refuse. "He's their agent just as much as he is ours, and SHIELD has stayed away a lot longer than they normally would in a case like this. Standard protocol has been subverted drastically; an appearance will ease their minds."

"Sitwell's here everyday," Bruce protested.

"Which is why Clint has been allowed to remain here," she pointed out reasonably.

"I'd like to see them try to take him," Tony announced with an even tone and Steve looked at him directly. Tony was beside Bruce now, reading from the same computer screen, posture relaxed. Steve hated it when Tony said things like that while looking utterly calm.

"As far as I know that's not in their agenda," Natasha pointed out coolly, and then a little grin twitched at the corner of her mouth, "and I'm not sure they're ready for round two just yet."

Well, in that case Steve figured a field trip with Clint would probably be okay. So long as there were no horses. Or weapons to lift. Or plastic spoons.

This could end badly.

"Is the helicarrier in range?" he asked, ignoring his internal despair.

"It's by Norfolk," she nodded. "Won't take long to get there."

"We'll go tomorrow, but make sure they understand that we won't be staying all day and Clint _will_ be leaving with us," he decided. It would be good to go, he needed to have a meeting with Fury anyway. When nobody argued (namely Tony) he nodded a farewell and headed back to the stairwell. He had a workout to complete.

As it turns out, SHIELD had mixed feelings about Clint being back on board the helicarrier. Or at least the important people in SHIELD did, because the average individual working on the helicarrier seemed like they found discussing the gentrification of ant colonies with Hank Pym more interesting in the fact that Teen-Clint was visiting. Either that, or they were very good at pretending to not care as they went about their daily business, while covertly keeping track of each step every Avenger made. Tony spared the thoughts fleeting attention before deciding he could care less. What really interested him, as he slouched in a black high-backed chair in Fury's private conference room of choice, were the two faces looming over them all from the large screens built high into the wall.

The faces hadn't introduced themselves to Tony and his team, and Fury rarely bothered with pleasantries (this time was no exception), but it was pretty obvious they were a part of the World Security Council. Namely, they were Fury's bosses, though the terse way Fury spoke to them indicated that he wasn't overly impressed by this fact. Tony figured actively trying to drop a nuke on a city of innocents against Fury's advice had something to do with the frostiness.

Then again Tony could be projecting, very aware of his own deep, personal hatred towards them for that same reason. To be fair, however, that one incident wasn't the _only_ cause for his dislike, it was just the top of his list.

Judging by the way they had pointedly ignored Tony's existence when he and Steve had entered the large, mostly empty conference room, the feelings were mutual. Tony would much rather have been in the lab with Bruce, or even the med wing with Natasha, Thor, and Clint, than have to deal with these…fine upstanding citizens, but knowledge was power. Also, he wanted to be here to back up Steve and Sitwell. Just in case.

"So what you're telling us," the man on the screen hedged, his thick head of sandy-coloured hair and sharp blue eyes intent on Fury, "is that your child agent is beginning to show signs of regaining his adult memories."

"It looks that way," Fury agreed, tone clipped, and the Man's face remained dour. Tony decided he looked like a Ken doll would, if he was around fifty years old and his face was frozen in a scowl instead of a perfect plastic smile. Ken it was, then.

"That is good news," the woman, whom Tony decided to call Liz in honour of the imperiousness she was oozing through the screen, decided.

"What does his recovery time look like?" Ken demanded, and Tony could feel Steve frowning beside him, no doubt giving the Councilor the hairy eyeball of suspicion that was mostly hidden behind the polite-façade he pulled out for the media, politicians he didn't care for, or Tony on those special days where Tony just couldn't stop needling him.

"It's uncertain at this moment," Sitwell answered dutifully when Fury looked to him. "His physical state seems to be aging faster than the average human should, but it's marginal and not showing any sign of increasing growth rate. As for his mental state, he seems to be coping better than expected, but there's no baseline for how quickly he'll recover his memories." Who knew Sitwell could actually pull of the featureless agent façade so well? After that bland, professional rundown it was almost possible to mistake him for a robot. Just not one of Tony's robots, his robots were powered by the excellence of their personalities.

"Which means he's unpredictable and _not_ fit for active duty," Fury added firmly, which had Ken's eyes narrowing in irritation and Tony's hackles stirring.

"Of course not," Liz cut in, sounding somewhat reasonable despite her stern, icy tone. "He's liable to collapse the operation in his current state. If his condition does stabilize, however, we expect that you'll prepare him for deployment appropriately."

Fury nodded sharply, not verbally agreeing to anything, which had Ken's scowl darkening.

"You will keep us appraised of his condition, Director," Ken ordered. "You're aware of the time sensitivity here. We expect updates on his recall _as_ they occur."

"Of course. If that's all for today," Fury didn't make it a question and the two council members shut down their connections without further comment. Tony waited all of five seconds before Steve was pushing angrily to his feet and turning to face Fury.

"What exactly is this mission they're pushing for?" the captain demanded, and Fury turned his hard gaze on him, eye narrowed with warning at Steve's tone. Tony pulled out his phone and began rapidly tapping a message to Pepper. He ignored Sitwell as the man watched him compose his text.

"It doesn't matter what their mission is, Captain, because Agent Barton will not be partaking in it. At all." Fury derailed Steve's outrage before it could properly launch, and after a long, hard glare Steve took his seat again.

"We're not about to let them send an untrained kid deep undercover just because he's a SHIELD agent when grown," Sitwell added. Perhaps scornful would be a better descriptive of his tone as he finally stopped watching Tony. "There's a rule somewhere about that."

"At least not on one of _their_ ops," Fury agreed, which had Tony instantly suspicious. He hit send, and hoped that Pepper picked up on his urgency.

"Not on _any_ ops," Steve stated firmly, his back up again. Sitwell looked like he agreed wholeheartedly with boy-wonder, if his silence was anything to judge by.

"Why did you want us in on that meeting?" Tony cut in, breaking the stare-off between Steve and Fury. "We didn't need to be here for that."

"No, you didn't," Fury agreed, "but since you're here your presence acts as a physical reminder that it's not just me that the council needs to fight on getting their hands on Barton." That was a sobering thought. It was safe to say this might be one instance where Tony didn't mind Fury using him to manipulate others.

"That's not all though," Steve almost sounded accusing as he looked between Fury and Sitwell, and Sitwell nodded with instant agreement. "Clint is a high profile agent," Steve continued, clearly thinking aloud, "but he doesn't usually warrant the personal attention of the World Council." Which was what Tony had also been thinking. No offence to their archer intended, but if the Council focused its attention on their group at all it was usually because of Tony, Thor, or Bruce. Not even Captain America interested them all that much, in the grand scheme of things.

"No, he doesn't," Fury agreed, "which is why you've been kept informed of their interest in Barton. They've been subtle, as subtle as they ever are, and I don't like it."

"We've been trying to figure out if there's an ulterior motive in this focused interest." Sitwell peered through his glasses between Steve and Tony, as serious as he ever was. "But so far they're squeaky clean. You know, aside from wanting to throw a 'fourteen-year-old carnie to the wolves in the name of national security' squeaky clean."

"It could be nothing," Tony pointed out, because someone had to, even if it felt wrong.

"It's never nothing," Fury disagreed and Tony nodded, because yeah, that was pretty much the motto of SHIELD right there. He happened to agree with it this time.

"Also, Maltby and Joffé," Sitwell nodded at the screens to confirm he was talking about Ken and Liz, and resettled his glasses on his nose, "have assigned two aides to the helicarrier temporarily. They're here with a long itinerary, but it pretty much goes without saying that one of their primary objectives is to assess Barton."

"Where are they now?" Steve leaned forward and snagged the tablet Sitwell was pushing towards them, and gave their images a long look.

"They were at Medical," Fury stated as he moved to the door and Steve passed Tony the Stark-pad. He glanced down at it to see two clean-cut individuals peering out at him. A woman of Indian descent with a short pixie cut framing her angular face, and a man that looked like he was a number of different ethnicities rolled in to one, an unavoidably noticeable, attractive package. Tony absently wondered if it was his good looks that put him at the beck and call of the hierarchy of the World Council, and immediately dismissed the thought as ignorant.

"Is that wise, letting these two near Clint?" Steve frowned and Fury paused at the door to give him an irritated look.

"No Captain, it's not wise," he stated, and then left with dramatic flair.

"Yeah, that was helpful," Tony sneered with irritation, and he and Steve turned expectantly to Sitwell. Sitwell didn't seem concerned with the power of their combined stares.

"Unfortunately if we don't let them do their assessment they might cry foul, and once that happens they become less predictable," he explained. "There's a reason Natasha isn't in on this meeting right now."

"Oh?" Tony sent the files of the two aides to Jarvis for further investigation.

"She's keeping them safe from Clint," Sitwell grinned, and Steve actually let his lips twitch a little despite his tense undertones. The agent sobered as he stood, and accepted his tablet back from Tony with a pointed look at it. "Something's seriously not right though. Important mission or not, putting a child undercover was not considered crucial for the WSC's agenda _until_ Clint de-aged."

"You don't think fortuitous circumstance is driving their interests?" Steve asked, displeasure clear.

"We don't think it's the _only_ reason for the interest. SHIELD of course, is barred from looking deeper into the motives of the WSC and their subordinates without evidentiary support," Sitwell didn't look too bothered by this. Then again Tony had learned that Sitwell wasn't bothered by a lot of things that he deemed irrelevant. He deemed a _lot_ of things irrelevant, and the WC was one of those things. This is one of the reasons Tony didn't have too many issues with having a SHIELD liaison on the team… so long as it was only ever Sitwell.

"Fortunately I could care less about SHIELD politics," Tony finally pushed to his feet and felt his cell vibrate in his pocket. He fished it out and glanced at the screen. Satisfaction at Pepper's texted words curled through his chest and he took a breath filled with smugness.

"Something you want to share with the class, Tony?" Steve asked on his left, and Tony smirked at him.

"Not until the paperwork comes in, and we're back home. I don't trust the walls and some things should remain in the family," his grin turned to a smirk, and Steve, who was far too immune to Tony now, just nodded and moved to the door. Tony switched his attention back to Sitwell. "You're not invited."

"My feelings, they ache," Sitwell was staring into his tablet, tapping away, not sounding the least bit interested. Tony suspected he was trying to get a hack on his phone, mainly because Sitwell tried to hack into it every other day, and never made any effort to hide this fact. If he said anything else Tony didn't hear, as he and Steve moved into the flying battleship's grey corridor. The lights that lined the enclosed space made the walkway seem much brighter than anything without windows had the right to be.

Sitwell and Fury had made their wishes clear enough: they wanted Clint away from SHIELD.

Clint went to medical without complaint. He was polite, he answered questions, displayed his arm for a blood draw, curled his lips in a winning smile for the nurse who snuck him a chocolate bar, and was pretty much the most cheerfully compliant patient SHIELD had ever had.

Where he came from, quality medical care was practically non-existent, and when it existed, it tended to take on the form of potions that probably shouldn't be consumed and salves that did the trick but you _never_ asked for an ingredient list. These doctors, as far as he could tell, didn't actively want to harm him, and despite not feeling like anything was wrong physically, he wasn't stupid enough to turn down a free check-up.

He also wasn't stupid enough to drop his guard. Natasha had given him a sharp, knowing look at the beginning of the exam, and then moved far enough away to pretend he had some privacy with the doctor while not so subtly guarding him. He didn't know where the other Avengers went, and he told himself he didn't care. Because he didn't care, caring would be stupid.

What he did care about, were the two suits that had practically tailed him and Natasha into this insane flying ship's medical…hospital/lab/whatever the hell this area was called. When a nurse had gone to kick them out, at least that was what Clint thought the guy had gone to do, the two suits had said a few crisp words, and then been left alone.

Clint eyed them and then looked around the large room. It was filled with beds separated by foggy glass walls, there were doors that led to operating rooms and glass dividers that doubled as some freaky future computer screen. The overhead lights did nothing to brighten up all the gray floors and ceiling and it wasn't his imagination that the people working in this place were more tense only minutes after that nurse left the suits alone.

Natasha leaned against the partition that separated Clint's examination cubicle from the beds on either side of him (both beds had people in them. Apparently this hospital in the sky was as busy as the ones on the ground), and stared at the suits through the completely lacking in privacy walls. They didn't seem to care that she was on to them. They were apparently too intrigued with blatantly watching Clint, or they were important enough that they didn't fear Natasha. Neither option warmed them to Clint all the much.

His nurse paused by his bed and informed him lightly that he was done and could go, so he slid off the bed and didn't hesitate to walk right up to his 'fans.' He stopped just out of grabbing or kicking distance, and pretended he didn't notice the way the general din decreased during his approach. He hadn't missed the fact that, nice suits or not these two were both carrying weapons, held their bodies like they knew how to defend themselves, and were packing a respectable amount of muscle. He looked between them, and then raised an expectant eyebrow at the guy with the darker skin and eyes that bragged of having Asian heritage.

"I'm pretty used to being watched, but I gotta say this feels a little violating even for this place. I thought you might like to introduce yourselves, before I start feeling the need to cry about stranger-danger and bad-touching."

They remained silent for a moment, before the guys lips twitched in what might have been concealed humour, but could have also been gas. The woman blinked, her almond eyes cool and assessing, and the room's harsh lights picked out subtle red colouring peppered through her short black hair.

"My name is Ms. Rafat and this is Mr. Samuels," she gestured to the man beside her as her dark eyes roved over Clint from head to foot and back again. "We represent members of the World Security Council, who are in charge of this place." Clint refused to tense under the scrutiny; people far scarier than her had tested him. "We're here to check in on your well-being. How are you doing, Agent Barton?" She didn't bother trying to pull out a patronizing smile, and he gave her points for that at least.

"Agent Barton is just fine," Natasha answered from behind him, cool and dry and emotionless. Clint resisted the urge to turn and glare at her for speaking on his behalf. He would answer for himself, always, but he also didn't feel right about snapping about it in front of these Council tools. He might not have any allegiance to this place or its people, but he sure as hell trusted the Black Widow over these two. Stick with the devil you know and all that. Plus, she was just as good at throwing knives as him, and could snap these two like they were sticks. He was learning how to pick sides.

"Yes," Rafat nodded, toneless. "We understand that physically he is recovering from malnutrition and should be reaching the doctor's goal weight in a few more weeks. Very admirable." Clint couldn't help getting his back up about her knowing his medical business. Wasn't that shit supposed to be confidential?

"I'm full of admirable qualities," Clint agreed easily, "also, talking about someone like they're not right in front of you is rude."

"My apologies," Rafat nodded. "And how are you adjusting to this new life, Agent Barton? I understand you're visiting the helicarrier now because some of your older memories are coming back? That must be very difficult."

"You know what's difficult-" Clint started, because this had just gone from being uncomfortably weird to decidedly threatening, and he didn't _like_ threats.

"Agent Barton has a pressing appointment that we can't be late for," Natasha interrupted Clint smoothly, damn near serenely, and she'd somehow inserted herself partially between the World Security Council fleabags and him, blocking his direct line to them. He froze, saw that they were still watching him directly, and slowly removed his hand from where he'd reached into his pocket when he'd stopped before them.

"Of course," Samuels spoke for the first time, his voice cultured with some kind of accent that reminded Clint of Jarvis, and bowed his head like he was giving them permission to leave. Clint wasn't born yesterday so when Natasha nodded, almost imperceptibly, towards the door Clint followed the silent order without question and moved.

They walked side by side down to the end of the hall where she stopped, and he halted as well, in sync. She was looking at him expectantly.

"What?" Clint snapped, and she just kept watching him. Oh, seriously! Not this again! He clenched his teeth together in frustration and reached into his pocket, pulling out the scissors and slapping them into her waiting palm. Then he added the second pair of scissors and glared. There hadn't been any scalpels lying around to grab today. He just wanted them in case he needed to defend himself, it wasn't as if he was going to attack someone because they looked at him wrong.

"I'm not worried about the scissors," she informed him softly, and he looked up to meet her cool gaze. "You're resourceful enough to get weapons everywhere you look, and if I was worried about what you would do with them I would have also removed the knives currently strapped to your ankles. Right now we are making a small point."

A point? He frowned, and then looked back down the hall to where they'd just come from, and saw the female suit watching him, her face blank and eyes on the exchange.

"It is always important to be invisible," Natasha said, wrapping her strong fingers delicately over the metal tools, "but when you cannot be, you make sure that others know your bite will do severe damage."

"That's fucked-up, you know that right?" he grinned as sharply as he knew how at the suit, and then turned his back on her and continued down the hall with his honour-guard.

"You are not a child," she answered, like it was an agreement of sorts, and led him towards their jet, her steps completely silent on the metal grated floors. "You shouldn't need me to remind you to keep your blades sharp."

"Sometimes making people think you're dull is the best defense," he pointed out breezily, but apparently she was done talking because she remained silent. He didn't make the mistake of thinking she wasn't paying attention to him.

One thing he did know was that the suits freaked him out. They knew his medical stuff? How did they know his medical stuff? Why did these people he didn't know give a pony's ass about him? They shouldn't. They shouldn't even know who he was. He didn't like this and he sure as hell didn't trust this. This was messed up, and his head was a little messed up, and he just wanted to go home.

Thing was, he wasn't quite sure which was home anymore.

Note:

1\. Larry: broken


	7. Reunion

Tony slouched so profoundly in his chair that his rear teetered on the very edge of the seat. His feet, braced wide with bent knees and pressed into the ground, were pretty much the only reason he hadn't slithered to the floor as he waited for the system reboot. Slowly, using the least amount of energy possible, Tony swivelled side to side and stared blearily out his lab's floor to ceiling windows, watching the pretty orange-red hues in the sky. Sunrise.

His lower back ached, his throat was dry, and the skin that wrapped tight and stretched around his arc reactor burned mildly; that meant he was overworking again. He felt like…sleeping. He wanted to sleep, but his mind was on the code, on the security system, on the currently silent and absent Jarvis.

Dropping his head so it hung awkwardly over the back of his chair, exposing his throat to the empty space around him, he groaned softly. A few feet to the left he heard Dummy's robotic gears shift to attention. Tony cracked an eye to ensure the bot wasn't going to try and cover him with the blanket it'd dragged into Tony's lab sometime around three in the morning. The extra comfort was a nice idea, but impractical. Plus Dummy seemed to feel that smothering him was the approved method of operation as the bot tended to aim the fleece at Tony's head whenever it got close enough to 'tuck him in.' At the moment Dummy seemed to have given up, settling down when Tony did nothing more than watch him bleary eyed.

The countdown in his head tick-tick-ticked. Tony breathed deep, the action slightly strained from the awkward stretch he was splayed in. He was patient, confident that everything would be just fine. He was absolutely confident. It was his programming after all, and his building, and his security, and it was only taking eleven minutes to reboot, full systems ahead, as planned. Absolutely nothing to worry about-

"Systems successfully upgraded and functioning at peak efficiency, sir." Jarvis's smooth, lightly accented tone broke the near oppressive silence in the room. Tony jerked his head up straight again, shifted to sit properly in the chair, and absolutely did not breathe easier at hearing his AI's voice on the overhead speakers.

"Welcome back, Jarvis," he greeted. He hadn't been worried about potentially damaging Jarvis during this upgrade at all. Hadn't been worried he wouldn't come back online after being shut down; not even a little bit.

"Thank you, Sir," Jarvis replied, sounding as pleased as he ever did. Tony allowed his lips to quirk in a half smile and twirled his seat around so he could start digging through the feedback data, double-checking what Jarvis had told him. He'd have the AI run a second self-diagnostic in a minute.

"Anything interesting to report?" he found himself asking, only half intent on the answer as he was sure anything important would have already been brought to his attention. He was distracted a moment as a cleaning bot quietly digging off in the corner for dust bunnies gently bumped into the edge of a chair. Tony blinked at it; he didn't remember programming that one to clean in here-

"There are no signs of internal or external threat. Chances of being attacked within the next-" Jarvis cut off abruptly, and _that_ woke Tony from his almost lethargic state and he froze from where he'd been shifting through performance graphs on the sheer interface before him. Off to his side Dummy whirred, blanket dangling dramatically from his claw. "Sir," Jarvis continued a moment later, "it would appear that we have a situation." And the AI stopped speaking again.

"Jarvis, we talked about dramatic pronouncements with pregnant pauses, and how they are reserved for my use only," Tony warned with a frown, unease budding in his chest.

"My apologies, sir. I was taking a moment to confirm, but it would appear that Mr. Barton is no longer within the Tower."

Tony blinked as blue writing flashed across the screen before him.

"He's not stuck on the outside of the building again, is he?" he asked unhappily, because once had been more than enough.

"I'm afraid not, sir." Jarvis sounded displeased. "There is no sign of him within the tower or within a four block radius. It would appear that he has successfully flown the coop."

Tony closed his no doubt bloodshot eyes, ignoring the bright rays of early morning sunlight beginning to creep throughout his lab.

"That little shit," he muttered, hard pressed to be admiring when worry was cropping up. "Do we have a tracker on him?" Tony hadn't doused the food in the tower with nanotracers for a few days now. He'd thought Clint had maybe lost interest in 'liberating' himself after the afternoon on the helicarrier. Tony should have known better.

"No sir, but he has performed several searches on his brother these last few days. I believe there is an 91% chance he is heading to see him now."

"Well why didn't you lead with that?" Tony snapped and pushed to his feet. He nearly toppled over as Dummy swung that damn blanket around to thump softly against his legs. "Dummy! Not now," he petted the bot's head absently as he moved past, but otherwise spared him no more attention.

"Mr. Hogan will have the car ready by the time you've changed, sir," Jarvis informed him. Tony looked down at his chest and noticed the smears of blue lubricant he'd spilled on his shirt earlier after futzing with his suit's shoulder hydraulics, and the smear of red sauce from dinner. He changed direction to head to his and Pepper's room.

"Call Natasha," he ordered as he stripped efficiently and plucked a crisp black button-up from the hanger.

"Black Widow is currently out of contact due to a SHIELD operation," Jarvis stated as Tony's automated closet presented three jackets that would compliment his shirt. He grabbed the closest one, threw it on, and just remembered to put on pants before rushing out the door.

Right, their assassin was away. Thor was with Jane, Bruce was out for his morning marathon, Steve was probably with him, and the helicarrier was somewhere near the Bermuda Triangle. Well, that was fine. He didn't think he would need back-up with this. How much trouble could a fourteen year old crack shot carney runaway possibly get into while Tony and Happy tracked him down?

"Better have my portable suit in the car," Tony ordered, bouncing on his toes in the fast moving elevator, fingers impatiently adjusting his jacket sleeves. "Just in case."

"It is already there, Sir," Jarvis informed him, "though I do not think you'll be needing it." Tony valiantly did not rub at his forehead to try and chase away his growing headache.

"Way to jinx us, Jarvis. You'd better put the Avengers on stand-by now."

"Yes, sir," his AI agreed as Tony stepped through the front lobby of his building briskly, doors opening smoothly before him and people clearing out of his way with polite good mornings that he didn't bother to return. Happy, sunglasses hiding his eyes and linebacker shoulders covered in a crisp grey jacket, was waiting with the front door to his car open and a large cup of coffee in hand. He unceremoniously handed the coffee to Tony and swept around the car to the driver side. Tony slid into his seat, slammed the door of the non-descript sedan shut, and barely settled before Happy was weaving through morning traffic at a slightly manic pace.

"You've been briefed?" Tony checked, looking to his friend. Happy didn't take his eyes from the road, cutting off a food truck and rushing through a yellow light.

"Yes," he replied shortly. "Kid probably waltzed right out the front door," he speculated and Tony could imagine that just as easily as coming up with an elaborate scenario that involved trash chutes, delivery vans and paperboy disguises. Or maybe a homemade hang glider; you never knew with Clint.

"Where are we headed?" Tony asked instead, leaning back in the seat and trusting that Jarvis and Happy had this bit covered. There was, hopefully, little chance his AI would be wrong about where Clint was going; he'd been most privy to Clint's actions after all.

"Blue Haven Penitentiary," Happy stated bluntly.

Huh.

There wasn't much Tony could say about that, so he settled in to drink his coffee and think.

The drive to the correctional facility was long and boring. After the first half hour Tony wondered why he didn't just don his suit, the one sitting in its easily accessible position right behind Happy's seat, and fly there directly. Jarvis made the annoyingly reasonable point that not only would that draw unnecessary and unwanted attention but that Clint would no doubt take longer than Tony to get there despite the head start. So there was no point in rushing.

Tony sat tensely in the passenger seat, talking briefly with Pepper and Sitwell to give them updates on the situation. Pepper was suitably worried, informing him he'd better get Clint back after all the red tape she had cut through the last few days for him. Tony wholeheartedly agreed.

Sitwell was pissed, which was his way of showing he cared. He made noises about grabbing a jet and flying back to New York to sort this out himself. But then he'd have to explain the jet, and he couldn't risk the WSC getting wind of Clint's escape or they might decide to involve themselves directly. Which would be a poor development.

So instead he said, "Find him, Stark. Hog-tie him, strap him to your back and fly him back to the Tower under the cover of a flock of birds if you have to. I don't care if this will traumatize him, just make sure he's alive and whole, and let me know the moment you have him, because if I have to come and get him myself-" Tony hung up at that point, because Sitwell could be long winded and creative when he wanted to be. If Sitwell seriously wanted to punish Tony for something that was totally _not his fault_ , Tony probably wouldn't see it coming. The agent had been friends with Coulson, after all.

The city disappeared into suburbs, and then to country. Vineyards melded into more mundane crops and when they were _finally_ on the singular driveway approaching the front entrance of the looming penitentiary they were surrounded by nothing but ominously stretching fields and dull grey skies. Tony eyed the oceans of green around them and wondered exactly how many bodies had been buried in the vast area over the long years.

He turned back to the very unimaginative large grey building as he stepped out of the sedan. Happy fell in three steps behind his right shoulder, ever vigilant, and together they marched through the front glass doors. Jarvis immediately informed him that without direct contact with their closed circuit computers he couldn't hack into them. Tony wiggled the tiny radio bud in his ear so it settled more comfortably, and pulled on a thick veneer of self-importance.

Well, maybe not so much a veneer, as he _was_ important.

The facility was underwhelming, and was not a place designed to waste space. They walked into an open foyer, a row of empty chairs sat against the wall to their left accompanied by a fake potted plant, a water fountain, a vending machine, and not much else. Tony didn't pause to take much more in than that. Happy would note where all the security cameras and other pertinent things were. Tony didn't pay much attention to that when he wasn't in his suit, unless it suited him. Heh.

A woman sat behind the front desk, separated from the room by bullet-resistant glass and a tall, solid counter. She didn't look up at his approach. The guard standing on duty by the doors they had just walked through, however, jerked sharply. Tony gave him a polite smile and halted a foot away from her desk. He didn't want to risk touching the glass; he wasn't sure how many people had leaned against this counter before.

"Excuse me," he announced, "I was wondering if you could help me out."

The woman behind the desk looked away from her computer to greet him, her polite smile shifted into a startled twitch and her eyes went wide with surprise.

"I, um. Certainly, Mr. Stark." She recovered quickly he would give her that, though she still looked a little spooked. Well…that probably just meant she had good survival instincts. Before Iron Man came into existence people had generally looked more awestruck than concerned for their safety when he appeared unannounced in their vicinity. How times changed. Of course she also worked in a maximum security prison for a living, so she might have a bit more common sense (or not) than the average individual. "How can I help you?"

He was interrupted from answering when the entrance doors opened with a loud slap. Tony twisted to investigate the potential threat, his nerves singing because there hadn't been any cars in the visitor parking area and nobody had been loitering outside when they'd arrived.

Clint Barton barged through the large doors, his hand sliding off the glass with a squeak from where he'd slapped it. The relief that pulsed through Tony at the sight of the overly confident teenager strutting across the shiny tiled floor towards him was jarringly warm. Jesus, Tony only ever felt like this when Pepper was in danger, or after someone had a close call in the field. Clint was even tougher on Tony's nerves now than he had been when leaping from one building to the next. The tired, stubborn set on Clint's too-young face was still easy to read.

"We're here to see Charles Bernard Barton," Clint announced, stopping just out of arms reach from Tony and a clear distance away from Happy. The woman behind the glass shifted, but as Tony was still looking over Clint to make sure the kid was okay, he couldn't see the expression on her face. How the hell had the teen made such good time getting here? He must have shoved a huge wad of cash at a driver to get a taxi all the way out here… then the cabbie must have driven like he was possessed to arrive just after Happy. Even with a head start- Tony's thoughts halted abruptly as realization hit. He narrowed his eyes at Clint, who was politely focused on the guard behind the counter.

That _little shit._

He didn't take a taxi. He stowed away in the trunk of Tony's car. Jarvis wouldn't have been able to sense him at the tower because of its Stark-class protective lining.

Tony's teeth and jaw began to protest, he was gnashing them so hard, and a quick glance to his left showed that Happy was even more stoic than usual, which meant he was fuming.

They had driven Clint all the way here and hadn't known. Jesus, Happy hadn't been overly gentle in his rush out of the city. Anything could have happened. They could have been rear-ended! Clint could have been hurt from bouncing around uncontrollably-

"It's three hours before official visiting hours begin," the guard behind the desk cut through the murderous thoughts that were beginning to build with alarming detail. He tore his gaze from Clint and his rigid posture, and looked back at the guard. She didn't seem too frazzled, but she wasn't stone cold either. She could be swayed. Tony looked back at Clint, very deliberately, and Clint finally looked back, bright blue eyes defiant and unapologetic.

"We came all this way," he rationalized to Tony, one of his fists clenched tightly at his side, the other in his pocket. Tony kept staring, because this right here? This was not good. Clint couldn't _do_ _this_ and think that things would just be okay. "Please?" the kids voice was a little desperate this time, and Clint immediately looked away from Tony, abruptly uncomfortable. Tony pressed his lips together, unclenched his jaw, and against his better judgement (and ignoring all the protocols he was about to overstep) looked back to the guard behind the glass. She was basically ignoring Clint.

"It would mean a great deal to me," Tony began, taking pains to keep his voice empty of frustration, "if we could visit Charles Barton at your earliest convenience." He tacked a polite smile on the end, unable to be friendlier than that as the anger still thrummed through his veins. It was all he could do to not drag Clint out of there with threats of never coming back.

When did he become the parent figure in this scenario?

The guard looked like she was gearing up to say no, a look he admittedly wasn't overly familiar with. Which was why it was probably a good thing that his answer ended up coming from a different source entirely.

"I believe we can accommodate your request, Mr. Stark," a tall man dressed in a slightly rumpled uniform emerged from a door just beyond Happy, the door that theoretically led deeper into the facility. The man, who shaved his head no doubt in defiance against premature balding, had a stern, yet friendly look about him. He also looked like he'd had a long night. Clint moved closer to Tony now, a subtle alliance against a potential new threat. Great, Tony was back to being the familiar one as opposed to the one Clint felt he needed to lie to and manipulate. Fantastic. But there was a time and a place to hash out these issues, and it wasn't here and now.

"Great," Tony smiled, not bothering with a thank you. This supervisor seemed to understand that you didn't say no to Tony Stark…at least not if you wanted to get something out of the encounter. Tony suspected the guy was fine with bending the rules if it meant a nice Christmas bonus for all the staff.

"If you'll follow me, please," Harding, as his nametag claimed, gestured to the door he'd just appeared from. He proceeded to lead all three of them, because Happy refused to let Tony wander around a maximum-security penitentiary without him, through several guarded checkpoints.

There was a bit of an incident when they were scanned for weapons. Happy relinquished his firearms with little fuss but was resistant to give up his sunglasses. He didn't want to lose the scanning capabilities that were imbedded into them and displayed in the upper right corner. Clint was ordered to leave the plastic spoon and large metal paperclip he'd had stowed in his pockets behind. The guard doing the scanning eyed the items and then assessed Clint, who shrugged innocently in response.

"I had a yogurt on the ride up," he mumbled as an explanation, "no garbage in the car." The guard put the items in the safety box alongside Happy's belongings and waved them through.

"You'll excuse us for bringing you to one of our more secured visitation rooms," Harding explained unapologetically as he led them into a high security room with camera lights blinking away above them in each corner. "I believe it would be best for all involved if knowledge of your presence was kept to a minimum."

"I'm glad we have an understanding," Tony nodded, "Privacy is important." Harding left with barely a nod of acknowledgment, presumably to get the prisoner, and Happy watched him leave with a bland stare. One of the two honour guards they'd picked up along the way slipped through the door to join them. He stood quietly, a dark blue mass against the white at his back. Tony eyed the walls that clearly hadn't been painted in a while, leaving his friend and bodyguard to give the new guard the stink-eye, and turned his focus to the center of the room. The table that resided there was bolted securely to the ground; an inch-thick piece of glass bisected the room and said table. It was most likely a highly reinforced barrier and was impressively dominant as far as government funded prisons went. It didn't look nearly as old as the paint job.

There were two chairs in their side of the room, and Tony waved off the offer for an extra one to be brought in while he basically manhandled Clint into one of them. Clint didn't argue about his placement or the touching. He had steadily become less fidgety as they'd moved through the multiple security checkpoints. He was practically a statue in his seat; so tense he was probably pulling muscles just from breathing. Tony breathed deeply himself, and tried not to think about whether or not he was making a monumental mistake for allowing this meeting to happen. For making it possible.

Then again he wasn't Clint's dad, and the guy...the kid- Tony frowned at himself. _Clint_ was pretty much impossible to dissuade once he'd made up his mind no matter how old he was; hence his escape from Tony's tower and their current situation.

Tony resolved not to think about it.

He kept not thinking about it for five minutes before the door in the other half of the room opened. A guard came in with a stun baton grasped tightly in his hand and a man, draped in prison orange that stretched tightly across his broad shoulders, followed him. His hands and feet were chained with unusually thick shackles. Even shuffling along, Barney Barton cut an imposing figure. He was larger than Tony had been expecting. His sharp blue gaze cut immediately in Tony's direction, taking him and Happy in at a glance, eyes narrowing thoughtfully, before his attention was drawn to Clint.

He stopped in his tracks and stared.

"Move it, Barton," one of the two guards who had followed him in warned, and Barton seemed to pull himself together, keeping his face moderately emotionless if the arrogant sneer could be ignored. He sat at the table smoothly, his mountains of muscle and thick bindings apparently not inhibiting his grace. The same grace Clint had. The same grace, and sandy blonde hair, and bright blue eyes, though the older Barton's were dulled slightly. The guards locked his arms to two separate D rings welded into the tabletop, and one set for his feet in the floor. When they were done they spared a curious look at Tony, before retreating from the room altogether. In moments no one aside from Tony's trio and Barton were present.

"Monitoring scramble in effect, sir; it is safe to communicate openly," Jarvis informed him softly in his ear, and Tony looked at Clint, who was staring at him expectantly, and nodded.

Barton senior, who could possibly give Steve a run for his money mass-wise, turned his full and undivided attention to Clint. He looked him over carefully, eyes slowly tracking over everything he could see, and Clint, barely breathing, responded in kind.

Tony speculated on what it would be like to meet a family member in the future, until he remembered that he didn't have any family left.

"Clone?" Barney gruffly broke the tense silence. Tony, unsurprised that the man would come to that conclusion given his intelligence and chosen occupation, snorted. Clint had a very defining scar that curved over his right wrist. He'd had it since he'd regressed, which means that he must have gotten the injury while at the circus. It was a tell. A clone wouldn't have the same mark, unless its creators were unaccountably cruel.

"Fuck you," Clint snapped, apparently out of reflex because he seemed startled with himself. Barton, however, barely seemed to note Clint had spoken, continuing with barely a pause.

"So what? Some mutie whammies you back to puberty and you figured you'd use it as an excuse to come and hound me? I have better things to do with my time, kid," he sneered, but his eyes were still tracking over Clint. His attention settled a moment longer on Clint's wrist, tracing the scar, and his cheek twitched.

"Yeah, I can guess at your busy social calendar," Clint said, and crossed his arms over his chest. He was still _staring_ at Barton though; like he couldn't really believe what he was seeing but had absolutely no doubt that this _was_ his big brother.

"You're still a mouthy brat." This seemed to amuse Barton, and his eyes travelled to Tony, assessing once more. "How old is he?" he asked Tony, and Tony just stared back, not interested in talking to this guy at all. He was here for Clint and that was it. He made sure that his contempt for Barney showed, not that he knew anything about the guy… aside from his basic genealogy, criminal history and military record (yeah, he'd looked it up as soon as he'd learned about his existence. He was nosy, sue him), but he'd disliked him on sight regardless. The orange coveralls and chains only helped cement his distaste.

"None of your fucking business!" Clint snapped again, leaning forward in his seat, closer to the glass. "Talk like I'm not right in front of ya again and I'll walk," he snarled. Barton looked back to Clint, tilted his head like he couldn't give two shits, and smiled thinly.

"Seems to me you're forgetting that I didn't ask you here in the first place." A hint of mid-western drawl crawled into Barton's words, but it didn't make them less cutting. Tony very carefully did not blink at the near flashover of hostility between the brothers.

"And here I was thinking you sticking in one place was a written invitation." Clint hissed with reddening cheeks, eyes still locked on his big brother. Taking him in like he was drowning.

"This isn't a drop-in." Barton was far less friendly now, if that was possible, "and since you put me in here I assumed you'd have the sense to know when you aren't fucking wanted."

"Yeah, I got that message loud and clear when you walked out on me three months ago!"

Silence.

Tony breathed very calmly through his nose and did not take his eyes off Barton as the man stared at the teenager before him. That was why he didn't miss the moment Barton reassessed the situation and something about him changed. It was subtle, but it was there. A slight softening of shoulders, a loosening of clenched fists. His cool blue eyes drifted back to stare at Tony once more, while Clint sat unnaturally still in his plastic seat. Obviously he hadn't meant to say as much as he had and now he didn't know what to do. He was more off-balanced than Tony could ever recall seeing him, but then again family could do that to you, and this wasn't exactly a normal reunion.

The tense silence stretched until Barton refocused his intense gaze on his younger brother.

"So you're what, almost fifteen." Barton stated rather then asked. "You're not a clone, so you're somehow regressed, and you don't remember anything past your current age."

"What the fuck difference does that make?" Clint huffed.

"You'd be surprised," Barton leaned more solidly on the table before him, rolling his head on his shoulders, appearing to loosen up.

"I probably wouldn't," Clint rebutted instantly. "It's pretty amazing what a person learns to deal with when their brother ditches them for a steady paycheck and fatigues." Clint's narrowed eyes flicked to his brother's chest and back up to his face. "Orange seems to suit you better than green." Defensive and cavalier, it was quite the tone to pull off. Barney wasn't fazed by it.

"Stop being such a self-righteous shit. I asked you to come with me!" Barton snarled, suddenly defensive and more, well, human as he glared through the glass at Clint. "You made your choice to stay there."

"I couldn't go with you! I couldn't just _leave_! You think he'd-" Clint cut himself off sharply, very obviously stumbling over what he'd been about to say, and then changing route. Barton stiffened, chain rattling as he jerked his wrist slightly, eyes narrowing speculatively at his little brother. Clint either ignored the suddenly dangerous look, or didn't notice. "What would I do if I followed you, huh? Sit alone in a shitty apartment while you were off training, or being shipped all over the world? Dodge the police because any time I stepped outside was a chance for someone to notice a minor running around without supervision? I couldn't go to school, because how would I explain who I was? Or where you were? I'd be dumped back in the system within half a year and I'm _not_ doing that again, Barney. I'm not."

Tony took slow measured breaths, barely moving as Clint huffed and puffed and practically frothed at the mouth as he glared at his brother. His brother, who was still as a predator now behind the glass, shoulders broad under his orange garb and his gaze cool and blank.

Tony realized, with a vague sort of recollection, that it was the same mask Clint used whenever he didn't want people to know what he was thinking. It wasn't quite as effective though, as Tony could see rage bubbling just beneath the surface.

"What would _he_ do if you'd followed me?" Barton asked, quietly, and just like that Clint paled, sitting back in his chair, but still glaring defiantly. Always defiant.

"What the hell are you talking about, Barney? Don't change the fuckin' subject."

"What would Duquesne do if you'd left the circus with me?" Barton asked more specifically, though just as quiet.

Tony knew that name. Flipping through the files in his mind, he pulled it out. Duquesne, the Swordsman. Thought to be Clint's mentor before Clint was injured and left Carson's Carnival at the age of seventeen.

"It doesn't matter," Clint bit out, shaking his head a little, like he was trying to focus. "It's in the _past_ ," and god if he didn't look too old saying that; looking more like the man Tony knew than this waif before him. In that moment Tony wasn't sure exactly how old Clint was supposed to be.

"You _tell me_ what he did to you!" Barton suddenly snarled, whole body jerking, looking furious for the first time that he was tied down. Clint reared back, and then regained his colour as his apparent anger at his brother flared hot once more.

"What the fuck does it matter to you, huh? You've barely spoken to me in two years and apparently couldn't get away from me fast enough!" Clint snarled, bitterness and hurt frothing at his mouth as he leaned closer to the glass.

"It matters-"

"The fuck it does!" Clint bellowed. "It hasn't mattered since I became his apprentice, and it apparently didn't matter after you left, because here we are!" Clint gestured around the barren room, at his brother, in the prime of his life and locked behind glass and chains. "If I had mattered, you would have _made_ me go with you," he finished, and just like that the fight was out of him again. Tony wanted to take the two necessary steps to put him in reaching distance of Clint. Wanted to rest a hand on his shoulder, anything to wipe away the desperate, hopeless cast from his face.

A shifting behind the glass had Tony looking away from Clint's slumped shoulders. He watched Barton stare at his brother, regret and pain and anger on his face, before he systematically wiped it away. One by one the emotions that Clint needed to see disappeared behind a cold, once again unconcerned mask. Tony took one step closer to Clint at that point, just to remind the boy that he wasn't alone on this side of the glass, no matter what was happening here.

"Then why are you here, kid? Seems to me you already have all the answers you need," Barton asked, his stare impersonal, gaze sharp. Clint slumped further in his seat and didn't answer. "What, you thought you'd come see your big brother, all grown up now? Come to gloat about the fact that I ended up here while you're playing house with one of the richest guys on the planet?"

"I'm beginning to question my motives," Clint muttered, almost too quiet to hear, sullen and upset.

"Maybe you thought I'd be different? Thought I'd what? Break out of here now that I know you're around? Run off together to start over, like when we were kids?" Barton scoffed, tone mocking, and Clint flinched slightly at that. Tony clenched his fist tighter at his side in sympathy, because yes, apparently Clint had thought that if he let Barton know he was here the guy might do something drastic to be with him. To support him. At the very least he thought he'd maybe regain his brother out of this desperate reveal.

"I shouldn't have bothered coming here," Clint snarled suddenly, and pushed up from his seat, knocking it over in the process, and he glared at Barton one last time, searching his face for any hint of affection, or whatever it was he had come all the way here to find. Whatever his reasons Barton didn't give him any comfort now, staring back cold and dismissive.

"No, you shouldn't have." Barton agreed. "Remember what Dad used to say, about dust?" he asked, his stare chilling. Clint sucked in a breath, eyes suddenly moist and reddened, threatening tears. "Do us both a favour, and remember this: you're not my brother. Not anymore." Barton intoned, hard and unflinching. Clint did enough flinching for the both of them, taking a step back, putting more space between him and the sectioned off, bound man. He looked at Barton and then, much like his brother had done moments before, shut his emotions away behind a wall of indifference. The threatening tears disappeared.

There was a stretch of silence as Clint did this. He was too young for this type of control.

"Try not to get shanked," Clint offered the advice, blasé, and then turned his back on his brother, crossed the room, and disappeared out the door. Happy cast one look towards Tony and departed after Clint without hesitation. Tony, not giving two shits about the older Barton, turned to follow. He had his hand on the knob when he heard his name.

"Stark." He paused, wondering if he really wanted to waste his time doing this, and then thought that yes, yes he did. He turned sharply on his heel and stared coolly at his friend's last remaining family member. Barton, for his part, looked just as hard as before.

"If he stays like this," Barton started, and Tony held up a hand for him to stop talking. Surprisingly, Barton did. He didn't look happy about it, but he did, and Tony reminded himself of the moments of pure, protective anger Barton had demonstrated before turning back into the grade-A asshole before him.

"If Clint remains like this," Tony stated, making sure there was no room for misinterpretation, "then he will be taken care of."

"I want your word," Barton demanded, dropping his indifferent mask for a moment, and Tony almost felt sorry for the bastard. Then again, it was hard to feel sorry for someone who so willingly cut Clint out of his life a second time. There was probably more to it, but Tony could care less at the moment.

"I don't care what you want," Tony pulled at his cuffs, straightening his jacket, before meeting the piercing blue gaze with a cold look of his own. "He's under _my_ protection now. You try to come near him after this, and I will end you; no matter what age he is."

There was a long, tense moment of silence, before Barton nodded once. They shared a look of understanding before Tony finally left the room, and the painful history that had been revealed within, behind.

A nervous guard fell into step beside him, escorting him through all the checkpoints in silence. Tony refrained from saying anything, too charged up at the moment and not wanting to take it out on an innocent. Nevertheless he burst into the mid-morning sunlight and took a fresh breath of air before heading down the wide front steps towards the car that Happy had left right on the road. Harding was down there with him, not far from where Clint was stomping angrily back and forth in front of the vehicle, pointedly ignoring everything around him. Tony understood that; sometimes focusing on the anger made it possible to ward off the breakdown until later.

He heard the thump thump of a helicopter that sounded close, but Happy seemed unconcerned. Harding must have explained its presence.

He was about to order Clint to get in the car so they could get away from this hell hole, when the kid slapped at his neck, a pissy look on his face. The look changed to confusion, and then he crumbled slowly where he stood on the pavement, young limbs folding into each other.

"Happy!" Tony shouted, watching as his friend twisted sharply, weapon already in hand and scanning for a potential target, before he flinched too and looked down at his chest in surprise. A little dart was sticking out of it. Tony made to dive for cover, reaching for his phone with intent to hit the panic button. Dizziness attacked, sudden and ferocious. His vision blurred so quickly he stumbled and saw only a blurred white-orange haze. His limbs turned leaden, all feeling disappearing, and moments later he was sprawled in an undignified heap across the grey cement of the sidewalk. He didn't hear the sound of the rapidly approaching helicopter or feel the turbulent wind whipping pebbles into his exposed skin. He didn't see Harding turn to wave at the chopper, before jerking violently and falling to join them on the ground, a dark red hole in his forehead, blood and what was left of the back of his skull leaking onto the pavement.

The prison alarms went off as masked men debarked and quickly hoisted their hostages over their shoulders. They were back on the helicopter in moments.

Inside the prison Barney Barton stopped as the alarms blared, hands clenched into fists as he reflexively looked over his shoulder, back the way he had come. He stared for a moment, and then turned ahead once more, ignoring the curses of the guards trying to herd him faster towards a secure cage so they could get to their posts. Resentment and anger and grief and guilt and then nothing. He didn't have time for useless emotions or regrets about things that wouldn't be changed.

It didn't matter anymore anyway. Adult or young, after what he'd just said to Clint it was over between them for good.


	8. Blue Coats and Betrayal

It probably took a while for Tony to check back in with reality, but he couldn't be sure how long. He'd drifted on the edge of deeply unconscious and being aware of his body, but having absolutely no energy to wiggle a finger, let alone wake up properly.

When he finally fought his way back to awareness and opened his eyes he was a little bit irritated, more frustrated, and definitely confused. It took a bit of blinking and some valiant attempts to focus before his vision cleared and his apparent headache roared to life. Then he was just angry.

Flashes of memory returned: leaving the prison, Happy looking at the tranquilizer dart in his chest, Clint's older brother and his cold, distant stare.

"Ffffuuuuuuuuurrr" he groaned, not quite ready for words yet, and started rolling off his back so he could sit up and look around. The hard surface he expected to push up from never materialized. With a squawk and rapid awakening of his limbs as his adrenaline spiked, he fell. It wasn't a comfortable landing. His elbow took the brunt of his weight, a shock of pain driving into his shoulder as the rest of his body followed onto a cold surface. With a grunt he scrambled to sit up, breathing in controlled puffs through his nose, and looked around. He couldn't help the widening of his eyes at what was spread out before him.

"What the fuck?" he mumbled in alarm and made to stand. He managed to get vertical, but was still too weak from whatever they'd drugged him with and his legs refused to stabilize. He sat heavily on what was apparently a hard metal slab sticking out from the wall behind him: a cold, uninviting cot. He took in the laboratory before him, and there was no question that it was a lab of sorts. The entire space was octagonal, if not overly large. Inactive viewing screens were spread wide across every wall and lights hung from all angles above him, illuminating the room as bright as day and leaving no shadows.

There was the ominous presence of an examination table just off the center of the room, large wireless computer screens sat on a long table beyond it, something that looked like a bastardized CT scanner pressed against the side wall, and three men huddled over something on the right side of the room. They were dressed in standard white lab coats, though for a tacky flair one of the coats was crisp blue and slightly shimmery. They didn't seem to realize or care that he was awake, so Tony turned his back on the room at large to investigate a little closer to home.

He cautiously kept his breathing steady, because this was not the time to panic or get ragey. He wasn't the Hulk, being angry would not get him out of this glass box. And a glass box it was. Or more specifically, it was like a giant bisected test-tube. The metal ledge was solid and secured to a smooth wall of the same shiny material. Tony judged it to be about six and a half feet in length, and the ends were snugged up to the clear barrier that formed his rounded cage. The radius was extremely limited, so he barely had room to take two full steps to its face. He did so now, placing a hand on the cool, clear surface. Not glass, at least not regular glass. Probably had some nanocomposites infused- he looked up and spotted a tiny series of pinprick-sized holes in the center of the ceiling. An air vent maybe? He was having difficulty thinking straight and shook his head to clear it.

He walked the glass-like barrier, trailing his hand along it, feeling no cracks.

There was no accessible door. Shit.

He took another deep breath as his knee bumped the cot, and turned to look back out at the lab. He just managed to not jerk in surprise as he came face to face with the man in the ridiculous blue lab coat. He was just standing there, watching him. Tony hadn't been expecting that.

"Mr. Stark," Blue greeted, hands folded behind his back and he bent his neck in a polite nod. So apparently the barrier encasing him allowed sound to carry without any hindrance. When Tony didn't respond the man frowned, dissatisfaction apparent on his pale olive-coloured face. Apparently he had expected Tony to talk the moment he acknowledged him. Tony looked to the right side of himself, noting that there were two identical tubular prisons there. They were both empty.

"It is good that you have revived," Blue continued after a moment when Tony still said nothing. Tony was taking steady breaths so he didn't fly off the handle, the worry he'd been forcing himself to ignore bubbling for attention. "We were concerned about your head injury affecting your recovery from the tranquilizer." Tony reached for his forehead instinctively, and his fingers brushed over a butterfly bandage. "As it is," Blue continued serenely, "you only took three hours longer to awake than anticipated."

"And what overall time frame were you anticipating?" Tony broke his silence, keeping his voice as cool as he could. Blue blinked, apparently not having expected that to be his first question.

"That is of no concern," he waved it off, dark eyes intent as he looked at Tony.

"Maybe not, but you know what _is_ of concern for me," Tony stepped as close to the clear barrier as he could manage without pressing his nose into it, and was pleased to note the man was about the same height as himself. There was something odd about his eyes, aside from how calculating they were. "The fact that there are two other cages here, and they're both empty."

"Mr. Barton is fine," Blue was at least not going to pretend he didn't know what Tony was referring to. "He is just in another room undergoing an examination and will be returned shortly."

"An examination," Tony stated, voice deepening in anger. "Exactly what kind of examination?" he asked, his imagination laying out scenario after scenario in flashing technicolour as he thought of exactly what could be happening to his friend.

"Neither of you will be harmed unnecessarily," Blue answered, like _those_ words would ease his fear or something. Tony had heard them before.

"He's just a kid," Tony snarled, anger quickly morphing to hate.

"No," Blue shook his head and looked at his watch, "he isn't."

As if on cue a muffled crashing came from somewhere Tony couldn't see and Blue turned to look across the room. There was a large door, the only entrance to the lab that he could see. Another indecipherable sound arose, and Blue turned back to Tony, a slight frown between his eyebrows. "I look forward to working with you in the future, Mr. Stark," he intoned, sincerity apparent and, frankly, unappreciated.

Tony wanted to launch into threats to paint a mural of the dire consequences he would unleash if Clint were hurt in any way. He wanted to punch out of this cage that barely seemed like a cage it was so exposed, and make them let him go. Make them give his teammate back. Make them suffer.

He didn't react the way he wanted to; it wouldn't help beyond possibly giving them insight into exactly how determined he was to make sure no harm came to Clint. They could use that against him, against both of them.

Fuck.

He had no idea who these people were, or how the hell they had known about Clint's de-aging, but clearly they were well apprised. The only explanation he could think of, was that they had a hand in it from the start, and they had come to collect their 'work.'

He watched the scientist turn away with quick determined strides, blue lab coat swishing behind him.

"There was another man with us at the prison," Tony said, managing to keep his voice level as he watched the retreating back. His question was clear: he wanted to know what had happened to Happy. He needed to know.

Blue disappeared through the doors without a word.

Tony sat down on the metal cot, its coolness leaching through his pants, took a deep breath, and waited.

The sun was high overhead, the clouds thin and spread in long wispy runs that seemed to travel at glacial pace. Jasper stared at the body of the supervisor spread out at his feet, untouched since the prison medics and guards had flooded to his aid after the chopper had become a shrinking black dot in the sky.

Someone had stepped in the blood that had spread around his head, leaving half formed footprints that tracked away across the gray sidewalk and up the front steps where another pool of blood lay. That one was from a guard that had run out to help and been shot by the people in the helicopter. They didn't know yet if he would survive.

Jasper stared, the thumb and middle finger of his right hand rubbing back and forth without notice. Phil used to say he was just keeping his trigger finger warm, but no one else had ever commented on the unconscious action, and they didn't now.

"Thoughts?" he asked as he sensed a presence behind him, though he suspected he already knew what she was going to say.

"Informant." Natasha didn't hesitate in answering. He looked away from the dead guard to turn in a slow circle, looking over the entire scene again. "He was most likely contacted right after Clint was de-aged, possibly before that if Clint was on their radar that long." She followed his gaze to the watchtowers. "The moment he learned Stark and Clint rolled in he would have alerted his contacts and been given instructions. They were inside for a total of forty minutes." She looked down at the body. Forty minutes was plenty of time to get a team in place for the snatch and grab.

There was no wind today: the flags around the facility hung limp.

"Third tower on the east side," he said, and turned in time to see her nod in agreement. "You want back-up?"

"I'd prefer a key, I hate picking maximum security locks," she said, blasé as ever. She'd stand out like a sore thumb sneaking across the grounds to the guard tower dressed in her regular field suit, her widow bites dark on her wrists. They weren't here to draw attention. She seemed to read his mind as she gifted him with a dark little grin. "Don't worry, nobody will see me coming."

"I want them alive," he warned, and she agreed easily, because alive didn't mean in one piece, and nobody fucked with what was theirs. He looked over to where Happy Hogan was propped, barely conscious, on the side bumper of a powered down SHIELD medical helicopter. Another two hours and the tranquilizer would be burned out of Hogan's system completely. As it was they had revived him on scene so they could get his read on what happened, and kept him there because he refused to leave until he had answers himself.

Hogan had heard the helicopter coming before he'd been shot, but it hadn't been in his line of sight. The dead prison supervisor, Harding, had waved the vehicle's presence off as commonplace. Jasper had decided that the dead guard was a pawn before hearing that part of the story, and as soon as Harding's part had been played the kidnappers had taken him out. Sitwell was willing to bet his entire year's salary that Harding hadn't had a clue that he wasn't the only one hired by whomever had done this.

The only decent angle for the shots that had been taken were from a tower, and every tower was manned with two guards. Two guards, two potential informants. He had no doubt that they would sing after Natasha finished 'securing' them.

"My understanding is that there's some bad blood between Clint and his brother," he said. Which was kind of like saying that the French and the English used to 'have a few issues' with each other. Jasper didn't know most of the story between Clint and his brother, but what he did know was enough to make him glad that they had little to do with each other now. Or so he'd thought. "Should I bother investigating him?" he asked as Natasha began to walk away. She stopped and turned slightly.

"No need, he wasn't involved," she said, more order than suggestion in her tone. "Don't waste time on him."

Jasper looked back down at the dead guard, and then stepped away.

"Clean it up," he said aloud, expecting that someone would hear and do as he bid, and moved back up the rear ramp of the Quinjet he'd maybe taken without proper clearance. He wasn't surprised to find the communication light flashing, demanding his response. He activated it. First he would bring Fury and Hill up to speed on this clusterfuck, and then he'd assemble the Avengers.

They brought Clint back maybe an hour after Tony woke up.

He watched as the kid drooped between the two guards who were gingerly half-carrying him through the octagonal lab. One of the white-coated scientists followed calmly, hands folded behind his back. He had a shock of red hair and an odd gait that led Tony to believe he had a bad hip, a limb injury, or maybe a prosthetic limb.

"-should be more awake than this by now," one of the guards muttered in clear irritation, and the female guard glared at him warningly. He didn't say anything more, just tried to get Clint to put a little more weight on his feet. Clint rocked his blonde head back and forth and seemed to collapse a little further in their grip. The male guard's face flashed irritation, and he pulled closer to take more of Clint's weight while his partner seemed unconcerned. She was watching Tony, green eyes narrowed with suspicion.

Tony sat as still as the bench he was perched on, and watched their every movement wordlessly.

The scientist pushed ahead of the trio to the cell beside Tony's, and tapped lightly on the glass, fingers following an unseen pattern that Tony observed carefully, but there was nothing to indicate a touchscreen or access panel of any kind. There was nothing there, and it frustrated him immediately.

His attention was drawn beyond his glass cage when Clint, who seemed to suddenly find a reserve of energy, began to struggle. He tried twisting out of the guards' hands, and then tried jerking his arms wildly, grunting with the effort. Tony forced himself to remain seated, still and harmless ( _useless_ , because what else was he in this moment?) as he observed his friend's very lethargic attempt to break free. Ultimately the kid's efforts did absolutely nothing to improve his position, and Clint succumbed to the guards' direction. Distracted as he was Tony almost didn't hear the faint click and hiss coming from the enclosure beside his own. The tubular glass wall rotated smoothly, disappearing into the metallic rear wall while a gap rolled into existence.

The door.

The guards didn't bother putting Clint on the metal shelf masquerading as a bed, but they also didn't drop him carelessly on the floor like Tony had anticipated as they stepped into the small space. With enough care so he wouldn't hit his head or bruise, they aided Clint's crumble to the ground before stepping beyond the partition once more.

"You're going to at least get him a blanket," Tony ordered more than asked, but the guards didn't seem to hear. Assholes. The scientist tapped the blank glass again, this time in a different location, Tony noted, and the door sealed once more. Task complete, the red-haired man turned his attention to Tony with sudden, undisguised interest, before apparently remembering that he was supposed to be playing it cool. He couldn't quite lose the gleam in his eyes though.

Or wait…no, there was something odd about his eyes as well, odd like Blue's dark eyes had been odd. They were _shinier_ than they should be.

They had to be contacts. Contacts that allowed them to see where, say, the apparently invisible touchscreen access was on a clear glass wall. Because what better way to hide an access panel from Tony Stark than to make it impossible to see? Shit.

"The cell temperatures are individually modulated. He'll be comfortable." Red apparently felt the need to explain as he lingered just beyond the glass.

"Yeah," Tony looked to where Clint had pushed himself across the floor, pressing his back against the metal cot's base, "it's like the Four Seasons here."

Red didn't seem to know what to say to that, apparently not very well socialized as a child, and instead retreated out the way they had come, the guards following obediently. Then it was just Tony, Clint, and a big room filled with shiny technology that he couldn't get his hands on.

Tony moved to the glass and pressed his hands against it, like that would somehow let him check Clint over for injuries. The movement made his head swim, and he shook his head to clear it with minimal success.

"Clint?" he called out softly. Clint looked over at him, still dressed in his cargo pants but now barefoot and sporting some kind of shimmery white shirt that was far too large and flimsy to be warm. His movements were slow, but his gaze was as aware as it ever was. The blossoming black eye and cut on his lip, not scabbed over yet, were testament enough to how they should expect to be treated. Tony breathed out harshly at the sight. "Status?"

"I'm good," Clint responded, but he looked away unable to keep eye contact, which was basically Clint speak for 'freaking the fuck out.' Tony didn't blame him, he was freaking out himself and he wasn't a damned teenager with two realities playing twister in his head. The silence lingered a moment, which was the only way Tony could let Clint know he'd read his lie without calling him on it directly.

"What happened?" he questioned, maybe softer than necessary, and Clint shrugged.

"They just wanted some medical information." His words slurred slightly, but Tony didn't know if it was from the split lip, or because he was exhausted, or if it was an act for the monitoring devices that were no doubt focused on them both.

"What _kind_ of medical information?" Tony pressed, because he needed to know who to potentially dismember first.

"Scans," Clint gestured with his hand, and then ran it through his hair. Tony immediately saw the reddened skin around his wrist and a furious, helpless feeling lodged in his chest at the sight of it. "Blood tests, that kind of- of stuff" he trailed off and looked back at Tony. "You okay?" he asked and Tony did not roll his eyes, but it was a near thing. "Cause that bandage on your head says you're not."

"I'm fine," Tony answered confidently, "doesn't even hurt." Which was strange considering how muddled his thoughts felt. He figured his brain should be aching since his ability to focus was still on the fritz. Clint didn't look convinced, which, whatever. It's not like he was in the position to cast asper- aspergeons…ass- to point fingers. Wait, did that make any sense? Tony took a deep breath to try and centre his scattering thoughts. "Did they hurt you? Like, more than I can see?" Tony asked slowly, blinking heavily to clear his vision.

"I think they're planning something-" Clint answered, a hint of worry sneaking out, and his eyes were getting a bit glossy, like maybe tears were gathering. No no no…Tony was having enough trouble thinking straight, he couldn't handle an upset teenager that he'd swear up and down would _not_ be happy if he lost control and cried in public. This was too much.

"Hey," Tony started, swallowed thickly, and kind of dragged his hand across the barrier that kept him from his friend. "Heyyy," he repeated, drawing the word out longer than he intended to, and he frowned at himself. Clint looked at him like he was a moron, but the sheen in his eyes went away, so good on him for that!

"For _you_ ," Clint clarified his prior statement with emphasis. Tony digested that nugget of information and shrugged. Clint didn't seem to enjoy his cavalier response, but as he was kind of curling in on himself, pulling his bendable teenager circus boy knees right into his chest, his glare had little effect. " _They,_ " Clint swallowed and slumped a little more "they want _you_. It was always-" he lay down on his side, all tucked into a little ball of protection, "about you." He kind of looked like a snowball, with the sparkly white shirt…except not really because of the black pants, and the skin colours, and the not at all spherical shape he'd folded into. Everything was kind of blending though, so it was just-

Tony stared at the blur on the ground, so close and unreachable.

"Yeah," he muttered to himself, because wasn't that just the cake. Slumping into a more stretched out sprawl on his own floor, Tony didn't really give it much more thought than that.

Steve didn't bother with pleasantries as he stalked through a sublevel in SHIELD's New York office. He passed heavyset doors that had cheap metal plaques displayed above the frames that depicted room designations. He was decked out in full Captain America uniform, utility belt in place and shield strapped to his back. He hadn't donned his cowl though. Now was not the time to conceal his anger, even though there was no one in the hallways to see it.

Finally arriving at "Conference Room 42" he pushed through the door without hesitation and moved through the first room, ignoring the typical observation window altogether. He paused just over the threshold and took in the scene of the room beyond: bare walls, overly bright lights, and not a hint of comfort. Natasha leaned against a wall, still as a predator in waiting. The prey was a man in a rumpled black uniform, and Steve recognized that he must be a guard from the prison. He was cuffed to the round metal table before him, had a black eye and a trail of congealed blood down the side of his face from his eyebrow. He jerked violently at Steve's presence and his eyes went wide with instant recognition. Steve ignored him and turned to Sitwell, who was seated on the other side of the round table.

The agent was tapping into a computer screen, calm as you like, but he looked up at Steve's entrance and nodded acknowledgment. Steve nodded back, and then focused on the guard.

"I thought there were two of them," he stated, because Jarvis had been very clear about that when he sent Steve and Bruce the update.

"There were," Natasha answered, almost sultry. The guard began to visibly shake and snapped his gaze to watch her with very unmistakable fear. Steve kept watching the guard.

"Then this is the one that pulled the trigger?"

"I was under orders to kill him! I _had_ to-" It wasn't often Steve heard a man so desperate to confess to murder. Sitwell wasn't giving him a second glance though, and Natasha's stony gaze didn't shift.

"I'm not concerned about the fellow you murdered," Steve stood a little straighter and loomed. "I'm concerned about the men you tranquilized." The guard shrank back and looked at the table. Terrified. Steve resisted a sigh and looked to Natasha.

"He doesn't know anything, was just a tool; they set up a distraction in the prison yard to keep the other guards attention and used rifle silencers. He most likely would have been buried by tomorrow if we hadn't picked him up." She shrugged dismissively but still didn't pull her gaze away from their 'guest.'

Steve absorbed this information, looking to the guard and then to Sitwell. It was just the four of them present, but it was no secret that they had a prisoner in the bowels of the building. The moment Bruce and he had landed the Quinjet on SHIELD's roof, the ground marshal who met them had asked, "you guys here to interrogate the guy involved in Stark and Barton's disappearance?"

Steve had looked at her blankly, because he had not been expecting people to be so abreast of the situation. The marshal had taken his silence as confirmation, nodded, and moved on to secure the jet.

Steve had not been working alongside SHIELD too long, so he could be wrong, but generally that kind of information was not shared so openly. Whether or not every SHIELD employee knew about it, they rarely conversed so freely. Steve and Bruce had shared a look, and then split ways.

Now, Steve put the different pieces he knew together and came up with one explanation: entrapment.

"Who are we after then?" he asked his teammates at large, and Natasha's lips quirked fleetingly, which he would take as approval. Casually she stepped behind the guard, and with a quick flick of her wrist the guards' eyes widened in startled confusion before he slumped in his seat, unconscious.

"Another tool, though one higher up the food chain," Sitwell explained and frowned at his tablet screen as Natasha tucked a small syringe away.

"Is this going to take long?" Steve asked, because despite the united front of 'ease' they were all as tense as bowstrings, and time was always of the essence.

Also, he wanted to know if he should get some coffee.

"Few minutes probably. Your arrival will have helped move things along. Where's the doc?" Sitwell asked, looking up at Steve.

"Bruce wanted to check on the lab's progress. They think they're closing in on a potential explanation for Clint's de-aging."

"That's something at least," Sitwell replied, and Steve glanced down at the tablet he was so intent on, and carefully read it over.

"Tole," he announced after a moment, and Sitwell paused, looking over the chart carefully. Steve explained: "A four letter word for enamelled metal, number six down: tole, with an e."

"Right," Sitwell tapped it in to the crossword's appropriate line. "I was stuck on iron," he admitted with only a hint of dark mirth.

Minutes passed before Steve's advanced hearing picked up a commotion beyond their room. Natasha heard as well, and she nodded minutely to Sitwell. Without comment he stood and pushed his glasses back into place on the bridge of his nose, just as the first people entered the room. It was two agents and a medic with a gurney who had clearly been summoned to remove the sleeping captive. One look from Sitwell as he left the room set them to work. Steve fell into step just behind him, Natasha at his side. He would've liked to say the assembled group waiting beyond their room surprised him, but at this point he had kind of been expecting it.

"Agent Sitwell," the familiar man greeted, his accent easily recognizable as British though it was faint. They were the aides for the two World Security Council members Steve had met a few days prior; the ones that had been sent to investigate Clint and his "situation." Clint had been pretty vocal about how creepy they'd been that night at dinner. Natasha had acted dismissive, so as to not worry Clint.

"Mr. Samuel," Sitwell halted in the corridor and acknowledged the man briefly, and then the woman with the almond eyes and short black hair that stood beside him. "Ms. Rafat." He then turned to the two men that were waiting behind Samuel and Rafat. Judging by the irritation in their stances they had probably been coolly dismissed by the Council aides as they had escorted them down here. "Agents," Sitwell's commanding tone put them right back into business mode. "Assist Agent Romanov. I want full history work-ups of the names she provides you with." The men nodded and fell into step with Natasha as she strode away.

Rafat watched them leave, a faint frown on her face, before she focused back on Sitwell, but not without giving Steve his own assessing glance.

"I'm sure you're aware, but I'm a bit busy right now," Sitwell announced, and without warning started down the corridor again. Steve didn't miss a beat, falling in step beside him, and the two aides quickly followed.

"Yes, we are aware," Rafat noted, her voice lighter than Steve had been expecting, but still authoritative. "The World Security Council is concerned about the loss of Agent Barton and Mr. Stark."

"I'm sure they are, as I'm sure that you're here now to offer your support," Sitwell said.

"We are here to learn what you know so that we can advise our superiors accordingly," Samuel said from where he had moved to walk beside Sitwell. "I'm certain we don't need to lean on you too heavily to solve this dilemma, as the import of both Stark and Barton, and more specifically their _knowledge,_ should be well known."

"SHIELD is well aware of the dangers faced with their loss," Sitwell said mildly. "You can assure your respective council members that we have every intention to retrieve them as soon as possible."

"And this man that you questioned," Rafat asked severely, "did he have any promising information to impart?"

"We have both his and his partners' true identities." Sitwell glanced at Rafat briefly. "Agent Romanov is on the case. If there's anything there, she'll find it; she always does. I have agents exploring all known suspected parties with the financial backing and motivation to pull off an operation like this."

They reached the elevator, and the door opened as soon as Sitwell pushed the button to call it. Steve moved in to the back corner, making sure there was enough room for everyone to stand comfortably. He wasn't a big fan of elevators. "I'm sure you can appreciate," Sitwell continued after punching the button for the twenty-second floor, "that the list of candidates willing to apprehend either Mr. Stark or Agent Barton is…substantial," he said with complete seriousness. Steve had met a few of the 'candidates,' and he could imagine the breadth and variety of enemies his two friends had.

"I see," Rafat hummed, and Steve suppressed a twitch of dislike.

"We expect to be kept appraised of the situation as it progresses." Samuels said it as though he had every expectation that Sitwell would do so without question, and the agent didn't bother to hide his displeasure at this.

"Of course," Sitwell nodded in agreement regardless.

"We also expect that the Avengers," Rafat looked up to the mirrored wall of the elevator, meeting Steve's reflected gaze directly, "will _refrain_ from taking drastic measures to retrieve their teammates without proper authorization." Steve wasn't one for politics, and he had no patience for schmoozing, but after what was probably too long of a pause he nodded in agreement as well.

"Yes, ma'am." He had a brief urge to smash the mirrors surrounding them, so he wouldn't have to see that look of satisfaction on her face, but he resisted. They had enough issues going on right now, not to mention he caused enough material damage in his line of work; there was no point in adding to it just for the sake of a temper tantrum.

There was a long moment of awkward silence, before the elevator slowed to a halt on their floor.

"Gentlemen." Mr. Samuels ended their association politely and led the way off the elevator with Ms. Rafat following.

Sitwell didn't move to get off so Steve stayed pressed in the corner. The two council aides already had their heads pressed together in conference before the doors slid shut. Sitwell punched the button for the ground floor, and down they went. The generic elevator music wasn't playing as loudly as some buildings Steve had been in and Natasha was soundless as she dropped down from the hatch in the ceiling. Steve reached up and slid the flimsy cover back into place for her. She gave him a nod of thanks.

There was nothing awkward during their silent trip to the garage and as they piled into Sitwell's sedan. Nor while they were driving out of the building until they were certain they were in the clear.

"Alicia Rafat is the aide to council member Charles Maltby. Maltby is an only child, grew up in Yorkshire England, mother passed away when he was twelve, father was a mortician until he died from heart issues when Maltby was seventeen. He enlisted in the Royal Air Force for sixteen years, earned the rank of Air Marshal before transferring over to NATO for another seven. He has a near genius IQ. It is believed that he was being groomed for the Council while in NATO. He is a decorated officer, was twice awarded the Victoria Cross, and has no surviving family members." Natasha detailed from the back seat, and Sitwell looked over to Steve.

"He would be the blond-haired, blue eyed self-important asshole at the meeting you and Stark joined in on the other day."

"Right." Steve knew exactly who they were talking about.

"Trevor Samuels is the aide to the other World Security Council member you had the pleasure of meeting. Victoria Joffé." Natasha continued. "Born in the Netherlands, Joffe's parents immigrated to the United States when she was three. She attended the Trinity Elite Boarding School in Rhode Island, where she became good friends with the daughter of the former senator of Rhode Island, and the son of the former US Secretary of State, and developed a heavy interest in politics and power dynamics." Steve could see Natasha typing something into her phone as she rattled off this information. "Joffé graduated Harvard with a Masters in public administration and international development, and received her first doctorate in international policy and the second in economics by the time she was twenty three. She was active in the political scene in the United States for three years after her last doctorate, and then went to the United Nations. She spent nine years there before being recruited by the council. It is unknown how long it took either Maltby or Joffé to be promoted to senior rank within the WSC."

"We've been gathering information on the inner circle of the Council since they tried to nuke us along with the Chitauri." Sitwell added, changing lanes. The whole car jerked almost violently. Steve gripped the door handle at the casual disregard for the traffic around them. He'd heard stories about the agent's driving skills, and they were more acrobatic than he cared for.

"Maltby and Joffé are what we would consider deputy chiefs," Sitwell swerved into another lane and ran a red light without pause. "But only get to make big decisions, like bombing cities, if the five head honchos of the WSC are out of commission."

"So in other words they have a lot of pull," Steve said.

"Yes," Sitwell agreed. "A year ago we began to suspect that someone within the higher ranks of the organization might be stretching their influence beyond their means. We've been trying to narrow down a suspect list, but they've been good at hiding their trail. This thing with Barton's given us a much narrower list."

"You think the WSC have Clint and Tony," Steve realized.

"We think one of them does," Natasha had tucked away her phone and was now scanning the roads.

"Do we know why?" Steve frowned at the thought of what people as hardened as the council members would do to his teammates.

"No, but my guess is one of two things," her lips quirked in a facsimile of amusement. "Money."

"Or revenge," Sitwell finished, and then screeched to a halt at the front entrance of Stark Tower. If Steve hadn't been braced for it he probably would have smacked his head on the dashboard. Natasha was already stepping from the vehicle, and Steve took that as a hint that this part of the conversation was over.

"Thanks for the ride." He swung the door open and realized he'd forgotten to wear his seatbelt again. Then he paused because of a completely different realization. Sitwell looked at him expectantly.

"Bruce is still at headquarters." He couldn't believe he'd forgotten, and Sitwell shrugged easily.

"I'll drop him off when he's ready."

"Maybe," Steve hedged with real concern, "you should get a junior agent to do it instead."

"My driving is not _that_ bad," Sitwell protested, but there was a hint of amusement in his eyes.

"Barton crashed a jet smoother than you drive. I would know," Steve pointed out, and just like that their good moods were gone.

"We'll get them back," Sitwell declared.

"Without a doubt," Steve agreed firmly, then shut the door. Sitwell was peeling away from the curb almost before it even closed properly, and Steve went inside. Maybe now, with this new and upsetting information, Jarvis could give him something to look through to help find his team. To find his family.


	9. Red Dot Blue Dot

Tony woke up abruptly, and not gently. Clint's snarling and swearing got his attention first, but the hands pinning his shoulders down kept it.

He came up swinging, or at least he tried to. He managed to get his shoulders a few inches off the ground before he was pressed back down, and he opened his eyes to see two big men looming over him, each of them with a hand on his chest, and another over his wrists. Clint was still yelling angrily in the background, and Tony tried to look over his shoulder to make sure he was okay. He was standing pressed to the glass, hands hammering against it, but none of that sound was transferring to Tony. Just his voice.

"Why don't you go stick your tongue up a dog's-"

"This will only take a moment, Mr. Stark," a voice much closer overlapped Clint's and stole Tony's attention. He twisted to look back just as he felt a sharp prick in his arm.

"Get off me!" he hissed through clenched teeth and struggled to twist away on the ground, but the guards barely budged. Tony kicked his legs and bashed his toe on the glass. He squirmed in the other direction and smacked his knee on the base of the solid metal cot, and then he was released. He looked up, fully prepared to attack, and found a baton hovering inches over his chest, tiny blue electric currents zigging in and out at its tip. He took a steadying breath and held very still.

"Now that wasn't so bad, was it," the calm, almost amused voice said. Tony looked over to where Blue was standing outside his cage. A vial filled with what Tony assumed was his blood, was held carefully between forefinger and thumb. He passed the vial off to one of the lab coat guys. This time it was platinum blonde one with matching beard. He looked ridiculous with the white lab coat and hair so white it occasionally looked icy-blue. He took it without word and walked to the other side of the room to meet Red.

Tony looked back to Blue as the guards backed out of his cage and it sealed once more, leaving him trapped behind the barrier. At least he was alone. He rolled his shoulder as he sat up, and looked where his arm had been jabbed with the hypodermic. There was a small bruise forming and a small speck of red.

"You could have just asked." Tony smiled darkly, and Blue heard the lie. He should have, because Tony was making an effort for it to be recognized.

"I don't need to ask, Mr. Stark. I thought you would have realized this by now. Try to get some rest, we're going to run some more tests in a few hours and you might be more comfortable if you're relaxed."

Tony pushed to his feet, ready to get closer for this conversation, but Blue was walking away dismissively and the guards had disappeared as soon as his cell was secured.

"Tony?" Clint asked, and Tony took a deep, calming breath, willing his hands to stop shaking. He turned to the teen, who was still pressed against the glass, one hand splayed wide and the other in a fist. "You good?"

"Yeah, I'm good," he answered, and looked his young friend over. There didn't seem to be any new bruises, though the original ones had darkened to vivid reds and purples around his wrists. The shiner around his eyes was particularly impressive. Every time Tony looked at Clint he wanted to punch someone in the throat. "Did they come at you?" he settled on asking instead.

"Nah," Clint waved off dismissively, and pushed away to sit on the bench. He stayed pressed to the glass though, pulling his knees up to his chest, and Tony would be jealous at the easy flexibility of youth, but he knew for a fact that Older Barton was just as bendy. Tony slowly sat on the bench closest to the glass as well, and moved until his back hit the cool wall. There was barely five inches separating them. It was fucking frustrating. "They just wanted your blood. That's it. They didn't even look at your glowing chest magnet."

"It's an arc reactor, and it's a little more complicated than that," Tony protested, and Clint snorted.

"Whatever."

They didn't say anything for a while after that. Tony was still trying to shake off the grogginess of whatever they were intermittently gassing him with. They both kept their eyes on the three scientists moving about in the lab. Occasionally they could hear snatches of conversation, but nothing interesting or useful.

"I need to get a pair of those contacts," Tony finally muttered to himself, and rubbed at his neck to try and relieve the tension.

"Contacts?" Clint asked, and Tony tilted his head to look at him.

"You don't know what-"

"I know what they are," Clint interrupted him with a huff. "I just didn't realize they were wearing them."

"Yeah," Tony waved briefly at the glass in front of them. "I need them to be able to see the touchpad on the glass. If I can see it, I might be able to figure out how it works." Clint looked at where he'd gestured, back to Tony, and then back at the glass again.

"It moves," he offered after a long pause and Tony looked at him with a frown. "The key pad," Clint explained, tone indicating he thought Tony might be an idiot after all.

"How do you know?" Tony demanded, and Clint hesitated, he _clearly_ hesitated, before he shrugged with his answer.

"I- I watched them tap on it. It moved up and over from the first time, but they used the same pattern."

"They've only accessed yours once," Tony didn't bother hiding the accusation in his tone. He hated being lied to, and after a moment Clint's shoulders slumped.

"So, they might have taken some blood from me again, before they went to you."

"Why didn't you just tell me that in the first place?" Tony asked, worried, worried, worried. He hadn't been this worried the last time he and Clint had been captured together, and both of them had had the shit kicked out of them that time. Just…Clint was just so _young_ now.

"Because I didn't want you to freak out, okay? It was _just_ a bit of blood."

He was younger, but he was just as stubborn.

"We are going to work on your idea of appropriate responses to potentially traumatizing events," Tony muttered, feeling uneasy in his bones, and maybe a little, tiny bit hypocritical.

"You think bleeding is traumatizing? At least it wasn't because of a knife," Clint scoffed.

" _Jesus_ ," Tony muttered with feeling and rubbed at his eyes. He was never having kids if this is what it felt like just listening to their casual disregard. Bravado or not, Clint was speaking from experience.

They fell silent after that, only speaking when Clint's superior eyesight spotted something interesting he felt Tony should know about. Seriously, Tony had known the man could see well at a distance, but to be able to easily read the computer screens from across the room…that was just ludicrous. It was also telling that their captors, who Tony knew could hear everything said between himself and Clint, were completely unconcerned with this information sharing.

Every time one of the white coat scientists passed by he would glance at them. Tony had felt less like an animal on display during press conferences.

It was concerning.

The next time the scientists approached, hours after the last blood drawing, they stood outside Clint's cage and watched him.

"We should test the blocker out," Red said, hands behind his back as he stared at Clint. Clint had adopted that unnatural stillness of prey trying to remain inconspicuous in the sight of a larger predator. They were both still pressed into their corners, inches from one another. Tony wanted Clint behind him, out of their fucking view.

"Not yet," Blue said, and Red's lips pursed.

"We need to know if it's going to work. We thought the initial de-aging would wipe memory away but clearly he's still accessing his adult experiences. If the blocker successfully removes access to the memories he'll be much easier to control."

"I said not yet," Blue responded inflexibly, no anger present but enough bite that Red shut up about it. Tony had an icy feeling in his gut.

"He's right," Beard agreed with Blue, still scrutinizing Clint. "If we're planning on testing if the age reversal is possible, using the memory blocker before the reversal could cause severe developmental issues in adult form. It could damage him permanently." He speculated, thumb and forefinger rubbing thoughtfully along his jaw.

"So?" Red dismissed. "He wasn't the initial target, what does it matter if he's damaged?"

"Losing his kind of potential because of impatience would not make our employer happy. Barton might not have been in the plan," Blue dismissed, and turned to walk away, "but waste not want not."

Red looked irritated.

"Don't worry," Beard consoled with a modicum of sympathy. "We already know that we can reduce them in years. If the reversal is successful, we'll just reduce his age again and you can test the blocker then. It will be interesting to see how the divisions between declarative and procedural memory will be affected. You know he'll want it confirmed before trying it on Stark anyway."

"Yeah," Red sighed, and they turned to walk away. "Probably best to wait anyway, after what happened to the first subject."

There was a long heavy silence.

"Told you it was all about you," Clint said after a while, seemingly glib.

"Usually people are after my money, not my adoption papers," Tony frowned.

"It's a smart plan," Clint shrugged, and Tony gaped at him.

"Are you serious? Shooting someone with experimental tech is _never_ a good plan!"

"Whatever, I've seen the video of your trial runs with the Ironman suit; not like this is that different. Besides, it sort of _is_ about money." After a moment Tony lost the will to be pissed. He was just tired.

"Yeah," he agreed with Clint, because it was true. If they de-aged Tony and then 'took him in' and earned his loyalty…he would probably make anything they asked for. Hell, he _knew_ he would, especially if they showed him a bit of attention and care. They wouldn't need his company's money if they could just patent his new designs. He'd done exactly that for Obadiah, before the man betrayed him for power. These guys were playing the long game. "Crap."

"Don't worry, I won't let them fuck you up that way," Clint vowed and Tony…he just didn't have experience to deal with shit like this.

"You will let them do whatever the hell they want to me, you idiot." Tony snapped. "You will focus on protecting yourself."

"No shit I'll protect myself," Clint sneered belligerently, but ruined the effect as he curled in on himself a little more, which Tony hadn't thought was possible with how tightly he was packed in the corner already.

"See that you do," Tony ordered, and they fell into silence.

They both understood exactly how much trouble they were in.

Since it was now pretty damn clear these were the ones responsible for Clint's condition in the first place, Tony wanted to know _who_ they were. Maybe he could work that into an escape plan.

It had been thirty-one hours total since Tony and Clint had been taken, and Bruce was sitting quietly in his lab, going over SHIELD's best engineers work in association with Clint's condition.

They were getting closer to figuring out how Clint had been turned into a teenager. It had taken some pretty absurd research and very, very off the wall thinking by their best, and maybe the inclusion of a few not so terrestrial influences, but they were learning how it had happened. Everything was just sitting in front of Bruce, waiting for him to make the final connections. But he couldn't. He wasn't an engineer, not really. He had always expected to put the final piece of the puzzle together with Tony. Between them, after all, they theoretically had expertise to pull this off, but Bruce's main knowledge was in radiation and chemical processes and particulate theories. He understood everything he was looking at here, just…

"Arrrgh!" he yelled in irritation and smacked the cup of coffee resting by his hand away. It fell to the ground with a satisfying crash, and the octa-roomba that had been following him around since he got back to the tower practically pounced on it. He ran his fingers through his hair, and clutched at the short strands, before letting out a deep sigh and dragging his hands down to push his glasses out of the way and rub at his eyes. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself. He was nowhere close to losing control of the Other guy, but that didn't make the frustration any easier to deal with.

An abrupt, staccato crunch by his feet demanded his attention, and he let his glasses fall back into place as he peered down to the ground. Two of the vacuum-bots multiple arms were dragging on the ground, their mouths bumping into each other as it tried to forcefully suck up pottery shards that were clearly too large. It was apparently determined to do its job though, as it shimmied until the shard was pulled into one of the hoses to be pulverized internally. The crunching sounds were loud in the otherwise silent lab. Bruce pulled his feet from the floor to rest on the bottom rung of his stool to keep out of its way. It was almost sadly predictable when, a moment later, the bot made a distressed whine, and sort of spazzed into stillness.

Apparently the mug had been too much. With a sigh Bruce bent down and scooped it up; he needed a distraction from his work anyway. It was short work to expose the innards, especially as he'd watched Clint do it several times in the last week, and he immediately saw that the cooling fan was fried. He could fix that.

He was about to gather his tools when something odd caught his attention. He looked more closely at a tiny black disk that didn't seem to belong inside the simplistic robot (simplistic by Tony's standards), or at least Bruce thought it didn't belong there. Bruce knew what he thought it looked like, and he hoped he was wrong, otherwise Tony would have some very serious explaining to do when they got him back.

"Jarvis," he asked and, with a very small pair of needle nose pliers he carefully plucked the tiny black disk from where it was stuck just inside the bot's shell. It came off easily. "Can you confirm what this is, please?"

"It is an audio transferring device. Stock number seventeen." There was a pause, which was unusual, but not unheard of for Jarvis, before the AI continued. "It is supposed to be in the storage room in Tony's lab. Inventory scans indicate that five more are missing."

"Did Tony put them in here?" Bruce asked, confused.

"No, he did not." Jarvis confirmed, and Bruce frowned, but before he could ask about his next suspicion Jarvis spoke up again. "All six devices are synched with one hearing-piece. Its current location is in Clint Barton's quarters."

Bruce took a moment to absorb that, and then left his lab.

He went directly to media room. Steve and Natasha were hovering at opposite ends of a large circular table in the center of the space, each deftly manipulating the table screen and the projected 3D images.

"Clint planted bugs in the cleaning bots," he announced, and Steve looked up with a puzzled frown, eyeing the dime-sized disk Bruce laid out on the table.

"He can do that? He's just a kid."

"It would appear we didn't watch him closely enough," Bruce was a little incredulous himself, but he remembered all too well how Natasha had used a six year old to get his attention in India. Clint was far from six, and apparently far sharper than he generally let on, though his blatant repair work on the bots had been a pretty big tell.

"Or he just never trusted us," Steve sighed, and yeah, that was likely as well. Bruce would like to say he was surprised, but Bruce had been around the block a few times himself and not much surprised him anymore. "You don't seem shocked by this," Steve looked to Natasha, and Bruce turned to observe where she was intent on her screens.

"It's not about trust. It's about survival," she said without looking up.

"So you knew about the bugs?" Bruce asked.

"No, but I knew Clint wasn't settled. The bugs explain why he chose yesterday to leave. He must have overheard the conversation about the Council, and decided it was time to leave for real."

"For real? So the first few attempts were just test runs?" Steve shook his head, some of the despair Bruce was feeling was visible in the Captain's eyes.

"Not the first one," Natasha disagreed, and then finally looked between them. "He wouldn't expect us to keep protecting him, and he's always been good at waiting for the right moment to strike."

"But we know he was getting comfortable here. We knew he wanted to stay," Steve sighed, but it was clear he just felt the need to voice his concerns, not that he didn't understand. Bruce resisted the urge to pinch where his glasses generally rested on his nose in frustration.

"Survival is about letting go of the things you want the most," Bruce replied, and then looked back at the bug to avoid Steve's assessing gaze.

"I might have something," Natasha announced, and thank god because Bruce was ready for a conversation change, big time. A vertical list emerged from the middle of the table and Bruce started reading immediately.

"What are these locations?" Steve asked, all business again as he looked over the addresses.

"They are a mix of SHIELD and WSC sites," Sitwell clarified. Bruce turned to see him marching through the door. "Jarvis, if you could pull up a map with the relevant data please." He stopped right beside Bruce.

"Of course," Jarvis agreed even as the list transformed to a large map of the world, with red and blue location dots scattered over it. "The blue indicators are SHIELD operated, the red are the World Security Council."

"Remove all sites that are not based in the North and South American continents," Natasha ordered, and the majority of the map fell away, leaving just the requested locations. They all looked at it for a long moment in silence.

"They would still be in North America. Maybe Mexico, but I don't think they would have made it to South America. It would have left them exposed for too long and we would have been able to spot the extraction team's retreat." Sitwell explained. Natasha agreed, and the dots in South America disappeared from the map.

"Why are we looking at SHIELD facility locations?" Steve asked. Bruce was pretty sure he was committing each location to memory.

"Because some SHIELD locations are WSC funded, and some are completely WSC controlled but using SHIELD as a cover," Natasha explained.

"Don't worry," Sitwell said, seemingly unconcerned, "we have SHIELD bases completely off the radar to WSC, and beyond their reach. We play ball because we have to, but we keep the best pitchers for ourselves." A smirk touched his lips. "And the best catchers, outfielders, short stops and first bases."

"Not second or third?" Steve asked, not overly amused.

"Them too, but we like to let the Council think that they at least have one or two of the prime picks." Sitwell stood back and eyed the map. "Remove the bases from Austin, Flagstaff, and Fort Wayne," he ordered, and the dots disappeared. The agent frowned at what was left. Bruce could understand why, because there were still at least thirty locations left on the map.

"How do we narrow it down?" he asked. Sitwell smiled grimly.

"Jarvis, can you hack into each location's sign-in logs? I want to know which facility Rafat and Samuels visited most over the last five months. We'll narrow it down from there."

"As you request," Jarvis confirmed instantly. They were getting somewhere. Finally.

They came for Tony next.

He didn't protest, didn't resist, and did exactly as they asked.

His instincts _screamed_ at him to fight, to take them down. He had a fairly decent chance at winning too; he'd been training with Happy for years, and more recently with his team. One did not spar with master assassins and Captain America and not pick up a few skills.

They were smart though: they put a guard in Clint's cage. The guard had some kind of stun baton and she didn't hesitate to smack Clint with it. He went down with a startled cry, and she dragged him to his knees with a hand tightly gripping his unkempt blonde hair and steadied the baton inches from his temple. Clint held very still, but apparently did not feel the need to keep quiet.

"What are you going to do? Leave him the fuck alone!" The teen's voice shook as he protested. Red seemed amused by this as he patted the silver examination table that was parked in the middle of the room, showing Tony where he wanted him. The sterile table was surrounded by intrusive-looking tools, with a large machine overhead that could've been anything from a diagnostic machine to surgical laser.

Tony calmly (holy shit was he ever not calm; there was nothing calming about this) slid onto the table and allowed them to bind his wrists and ankles. If he turned his head to the left he had a clear view of Clint. The guard had left the cell, and the kid was plastered to the front of it, looking pale and skinny and terrified. Tony winked at him. Like magic, the kid's fear fled, replaced by a harsh, angry look. Good. Tony would take anger over fear. At the very least it helped _him_ feel calmer.

The table was like ice under his back.

"You can't just turn him into a kid!" Clint yelled, his words slightly muffled from the distance. He bounced behind the glass, moving back and forth with frantic energy. "He's got a _giant hunk of metal_ in his chest! It's not going to just shrink _with_ him! It's going to rip him open! Or crush his lungs or something!" Yeah…Clint gets a fail for comforting techniques. Apparently that's something that doesn't change with age either. "He's not much use to you dead!" Clint rapidly banged the glass with a concentrated look, and then frustration took over and he threw himself at it instead, full body attacks that didn't even make the glass shake.

He was going to hurt himself. More.

Above Tony, Red and Beard paused and shared a look. Tony's calm façade broke a little.

"Are you _seriously_ implying you didn't consider this fact before?!" he gaped, because holy fuck Clint was right: Tony was going to die. "You needed a _ten_ year old to point this out to you! I'm revoking your evil scientist cards. Consider them revoked, permanently." Holy fuck, he was going to die.

Red shrugged above him. His lips twitched a little like he thought this was funny, before he looked directly at Tony.

"This is just a preliminary examination. We have plans to remove the infamous pieces of shrapnel before we proceed. Then we will remove the reactor. We _have_ considered the importance of your surviving, considering the lengths we've gone to acquire you in the first place."

"Yeah?" Tony grumbled, twisting his wrists in the cuffs. The material was soft but had no give. "Did you think about that before you tried to shoot me the _first_ time?" There was another pause.

"Of course we did, now remain still for these tests. We would rather not sedate you."

Shit.

Things were not looking up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with me so far!! We're almost there! I hope to have the full edit finished by Sunday! Crosses- fingers.


	10. Easy To Wipe Off

"Colonel Rhodes has arrived," Jarvis announced into the tense silence, and Sitwell paused, straightening from his slouch at the central console, and turned in time to watch the doors to the media room slide open. Rhodes wasn't wearing his armour, but Sitwell knew for a fact that he had been on the other side of the country just a few hours ago, which meant he must have flown back in his suit, and it was ready for deployment. The fact that he was walking around a close-fitting black outfit, much like Tony's own for beneath the armour, added weight to that observation.

"Colonel," Sitwell greeted and stood to meet him.

"Agent Sitwell," Rhodes shook his hand, grip a bit too firm (as usual) and stood back to nod at Natasha and Steve from where they worked at the other side of the large table. "Sit rep?" he asked, and Sitwell didn't bother spouting off some bullshit about this being an internal SHIELD and Avenger issue that the military wasn't cleared for. This was Tony's oldest friend, and Sitwell wasn't dumb enough to try and segregate him from the search and rescue. He also wasn't dumb enough to dismiss a powerful ally, or a good man.

"You might want to grab a coffee," Sitwell gestured to the table on the side of the room, where Bruce and Steve had set up a coffee machine and assortment of food Jarvis had provided. "It's not a short story."

Rhodes did as suggested, in for the long haul, and Sitwell shared a look of approval with Steve.

Clint was fidgeting. Tony pretended not to watch as Clint worried the flesh beside his thumbnail with his teeth and picked at it with his nails. He stopped every time he caught himself doing it, balling his hand into a fist with his thumbs tucked inside his grip.

Then he would pluck at his clothes; tug at the shimmery, too loose collar of the baggy white shirt, twist the hem of his dark pant leg until it was wrapped tightly around his ankle, which made his bared feet look smaller. It made still covered feet feel colder, because it didn't matter how controlled the temperature of the test tubes masquerading as cages were, metal slabs and floors were _cold_.

Tony didn't bother asking how Clint was. It was pretty clear how he was, and pretty clear there was nothing they could do about it.

Until Tony could find a way out of this, they were stuck.

He had hope that the team would swoop in and save the day in a timely fashion. He trusted them to be busting their proverbial balls trying to find them, because that's how the Avengers worked, but he was a realist. Being a realist meant never relying on anyone to save you, it was just really nice when they did.

He watched Clint bite at his thumb again, scowl at himself, and then thump his head against the wall.

Tony followed suit, and then winced.

And now his headache was back full force. Great.

The scientists were preparing for something, and it was clear that Clint was not unaware of this as his agitation was becoming more evident by the minute. Tony was at a loss as to what to do, not really one for comforting people of any age, but he had the distinct impression something was going to give soon and it wouldn't be pretty. At a loss for how to calm his young friend he figured the only thing he could really fall back on was a time honed skill: distraction.

Eyeing Clint through the glass, now smudged in places from where they had both pressed against it, he figured he might as well also get some answers to a question that would just not leave him alone.

"How did you know which car to climb into?" Tony shifted to a slightly more comfortable position as he asked. Clint didn't open his eyes, but he shrugged gamely despite the gesture lacking any kind of energy.

"Happy sets the cars up in a specific order every time he comes in. 'Emergency incognito' is closest to the door," he explained. "Then the 'armoured SUV'; the 'I'm important and on official business' car; the 'I'm important, badass, stupidly rich and on official business' car; and the 'sexy touring' car. All the cars you might need at the drop of a hat and not from your private collection." Then he smirked. "They're your bullet proof cars."

"Bullet resistant," Tony corrected distractedly, because there was no such thing as bullet proof, though he'd come pretty close to perfecting it. He'd never noticed the specificity of the set-up before, because Happy always had those cars waiting out front for him. Also, he'd never cared. He thought about it some more…yeah no, he still didn't care. The fact that Clint noticed though, that was interesting. "You were planning your escape for a while then," he mused, careful to keep his tone light. Clint snorted, and it wasn't a happy sound.

"You could say that," he agreed, and Tony was glad the kid had his eyes closed, so he couldn't see Tony's discontent, which was probably leaking out of his pores at this point. "No offence."

"Exactly how am I _not_ supposed to be offended here?"

There was a stretch of uncomfortable silence.

"I chose the sedan 'cause I figured Happy would want fast, plain, and it was the first car in the line," Clint answered the original question finally, and Tony shook his head. "I knew you'd go to Barney because I looked up the address of his prison twice on your computers and figured Jarvis would tell you."

"You're lucky Happy was even around to drive," Tony pointed out somewhat snidely. "He generally runs Pepper's protection detail these days," and therefore Tony would have taken a car from his own collection, or just used his suit.

"Yeah whatever, like he hasn't been based at the tower since we went to the helicarrier. Want to tell me why you're suddenly worried enough about security to station him back at the Tower?" Clint sneered right back, then grimaced, the skin around his eyes crinkling in pain. He hunched over with one hand pressed to his ear.

"What is it?" Tony asked, quiet but urgent. Glass prisons were worse than metal bars, because it was so easy to envision taking the one big step over to reach Clint, to check him over, until you were physically reminded of the separation. Fucking mind games.

Clint shook his head minutely a few times, like he was trying to dislodge water from his ear.

"Clint?" Tony asked again, putting some authority into his tone this time, and was rewarded when Clint took a breath and loosened his posture a little.

"'s nothing," Clint insisted softly, still not opening his eyes. "Just- future ideas of security protocol, potential threat assessment, interior and exterior schematics, how to make a bomb with a pair of binoculars and- all that kind of shit. It just rolled in for a minute. I'm good now, back in the present."

Okayyyy…yeah, this didn't sound particularly good. Or maybe it was good, because it indicated that Clint's adult memories might be returning, and that might mean a return to his adult body? Maybe? Whatever it meant, there wasn't much Tony could do about it from his separate cell anyway, so back to their conversation it was. Joy of joys.

"You ask me why I'd be worried about security when we're where again, exactly?" He didn't bother holding back the sarcasm, because it was a stupid question and Clint was better than that, barely pubescent or not. Clint blinked at him, and then focused on picking at a thread on his knees.

"Shut-up," he muttered, and Tony didn't bother to look away from him, noting the slightly shaking hands and controlled breathing.

" _You_ shut up," Tony muttered back, not exactly maturely, but Clint's lips twitched and he stopped picking at his knee. He still looked so forlorn. Tony couldn't resist, he had to say something because it was just eating at him, and looking at Clint, all quiet and trying to hide how scared he was, it was just too much. Plus, he might not be gassed right now, but Tony was pretty sure whatever was in the atmospheric cocktail they kept hitting him with was still affecting his empathy. Yup, pretty sure that was what it was.

"Look," he started, and tried to seem as sincere as he ever had while saying something he meant. Clint instantly looked cagey, so it might not have been working out as well as he'd hoped. Whatever. "We may have got off on the wrong foot way back when we first met-"

"You attacked me in a parking lot and then took me prisoner," Clint interrupted without hesitation. Tony chose to ignore him. Mostly. The little shit.

"-what with me _saving_ you in a parking lot and then providing a safe place to live," he informed the kid. Clint didn't seem overly moved by his words but Tony liked to think he knew Clint well enough to see through his bullshit facades by now, and he had Clint's full attention. "Thing is, I consider you a friend-"

"You consider the older me a friend. Hawkeye the Avenger, not Hawkeye the teenage tool."

"Oh man-" Tony sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose, annoyed. "The sad thing is, I'm pretty sure Older you is carting around just as many insecurities as _you_ , and it's pretty pitiful."

"Shut up," Clint snarled, and this time there was real intent behind the words. Good.

"Make me," Tony mocked. Clint glared. Tony rolled his eyes at him, working him into even more of a temper. Anything had to be better than Clint focusing on their imprisonment and being scared.

"You are such a dick," Clint snapped.

"Woah! There it is!" Tony threw a hand out demonstratively. "Why don't you try saying something original for once, huh?"

"Fuck _you!_ " Clint hissed, "You think I'm _weak?_ " and that was unexpected and off topic. "You think you know anything about me?!" That: not so much off topic.

"What am I supposed to think?" Tony asked, using far more irritation than he felt. "You're sitting over there complaining about how you're 'not my friend' because I don't 'know you?' Cry me a river, kid! I don't have to know you nearly as well as you think I do to consider you a friend, so get over it already!"

"I don't have friends," Clint snarled. "And I sure as hell don't want one that thinks I can't handle myself."

" _I'm_ not the one implying you can't handle yourself here," Tony pointed out, wondering exactly where Clint was going with this. Wondering what dam was trying to break, wondering if this was ultimately going to help, or fuck the kid up even further.

"You better not be." Clint actually bared his teeth at Tony, a hint of savageness present that Tony had only ever glimpsed from a distance and under the most trying circumstances. "Because I can handle this! We wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for you!" he accused, eyes wide and furious. Tony decided not to take the attack personally. He would try not to, at least.

"Pointing fingers now? How mature. Fine then, if we're playing that game then are you so sure we're here because of me?" Tony argued back, turning back to his patented mocking tone. "Because if I recall correctly, it was _you_ that tricked us into leaving my nice, _safe and secure_ tower for a joy ride to visit your, dare I say 'charming' brother."

"You didn't have to go looking for me!" Clint looked a little wild now, but the savageness was gone. His emotions were all over the place. "You should have just let me go!"

"Like hell I will! Anything could happen to you! Point in fact!" Tony gestured widely around at the lab they were trapped in.

"What the hell do you care? What is so fucking important about me that you think I need your help? That I _want_ it? You think I believe that you just want me to live in your- your-" he floundered a little, cheeks red and eyes darting around, avoiding Tony now. "Your tower in the fucking clouds? For nothing? You think I believed you when you said I could stay if I just "helped out" occasionally? What a pile of shit! Nobody does that, not for free!"

"I do," Tony said, all fight gone from his tone, because winding the kid up wasn't working anymore, and how could someone fight _that_?

"Yeah, right," Clint sneered, "because you have the money to spare. Newsflash: you won't keep me that long. Sooner or later this idea you have of taking in poor little orphan Clint, living in this future while stuck in the past, it will turn cold. Cold like a dead fucking cat, and then you and the rest of them will want me gone. Unless you can think of a more _lucrative_ investment you can turn me into."

" _Fucking hell,_ " Tony muttered under his breath, stumped by how much Clint meant everything he was saying. Horrified at all the things this boy and his cold, hard eyes were implying.

"And I am done being a fucking tool. I am done!" Clint pressed his fingers to his temples, eyes scrunching and losing a bit of focus, but he kept his snarl in place. Kept it in place for whomever he was yelling at now, because Tony recognized that look: he was drifting to his 'other' life. Tony pressed his lips together and kept his silence. He didn't want to interrupt. He wanted to _know_. What was wrong with him that he wanted to know? "I'm not your charity case," Clint ground out, "or your show pony, and I am not going to keep- keep _fighting_ for your fucking profit! You think I don't know what you're training me to become!? You think I'm stupid because I don't go to school? You think I'm _blind?_ " he hissed, and his glazed blue eyes looked right through Tony. "I see more than you think," he warned through clenched teeth.

"Of that I have no doubt," Tony agreed.

Clint stilled, took a few deep, raging gulps of air, before blinking and shaking his head. His hand slipped away from his temple, he refocused on Tony and this time Tony knew he was back in this presence again.

Clint looked away, pulled his knees into his chest and wrapped his arms around them. His shimmering white sleeves had been pushed up past his elbows, the bruises on his wrist and reddened forearms carelessly exposed. When the oppressive silence that followed made it clear he wasn't adding anything more despite the fact that he was still pissed, Tony rolled his own shoulders to try and get rid of some tension. It didn't help.

"When we get out of here the first thing you're doing is redecorating your room," Tony announced, and Clint looked at him with a confused frown. "If you want," he added.

"It's like you don't listen to anything people yell at you," Clint said with a worrying depth of cynicism.

"No, get this; it's like immersion therapy, only instead of making you deal with your fear of abandonment all at once, we're just going to keep involving you in our life until you start to get that you're stuck with us."

"That sounds like Stockholm syndrome," Clint muttered with a disgruntled look.

"Teenagers who don't go to school don't get to reference concepts I refuse to acknowledge," Tony flapped a hand at him, and Clint snorted. "Seriously though," Tony continued, and found it pretty amazing that somehow, after everything that had just been revealed, he had managed to come back to his original point in this conversation. Tony _liked_ making his points. His points were important. "Would you please _stop_ trying to run away," he held up a hand when Clint glared at him, looking ready to launch right back into another tirade. "I'm not saying you have to like living with me, with all of us," he included the absent Avengers. "I'm not even saying that they'll always be around, but what I am saying is that you will _never_ be kicked out of my home. It's yours now too. There will be no throwing you to the curb, and no leaving you behind and no forcing you to be a sideshow attraction or- or whatever _they're_ making you do. You're stuck with me. And all my money. I'm sure you'll be able to figure out a way to survive the horror."

"You believe that now," Clint smiled grimly, "and it's a nice idea, but-"

"But you don't believe me. I get it." Tony refused to snap in frustration. It was like talking to Dum-E: Clint heard him, but just didn't compute. "We'll work on that once we're out of here." Or, you know, he'd tell Steve all about this and let Captain Self-Esteem loose on the kid. The less Tony had to deal with this emotional bullshit the better.

"Whatever," Clint grumbled, and rested his cheek on his knees, showing Tony the back of his head and they lapsed into silence. Tony felt old and sick.

Such was life.

She was a shadow, moving between the world of light but not lost to darkness; not anymore.

She was silent and sleek and well aware of every move she made, deliberate and unhindered.

Natasha waited until he was alone, waited until he left SHIELD and wandered the streets of Manhattan untethered. She waited until he finished the phone conversation he believed was secure, and intercepted his path.

"Walk with me quietly," she smiled sunnily at him as she linked her arm with Samuels, "or never walk again."

Taking him from the public eye was child's play.

She knew by the tremor he was trying to hide that getting what she wanted from him would be too easy in the end. Perhaps she'd make it more difficult though; she had some issues she'd like to work out before she got Clint and Tony back.

Being taken to use the toilet in a room just off the lab was a relief. Waiting for them to bring Clint back from the same trip had left Tony damn near fidgeting with tension. There was no chance to make an escape attempt, and Tony learned nothing new of the facility, and when it was done and they were both back in their glass boxes, they remained quiet. It was a long time before Clint shifted and broke their heavy silence.

" _You're dust_ ," Clint announced, tentatively like he was taking the words on a test run. Tony sat back on his platform, pressed up against the wall and looked through the glass at Clint. His breath fogged it whenever he leaned too close. He had no idea what the kid was talking about.

"What?" he asked when the teen didn't continue. Clint rolled his forehead slowly on his knees, but didn't look Tony's way.

"It's what my dad used to say to me, before the idiot got himself killed," Clint explained, voice oddly distant. "You're nothing but dust, easy to wipe off." He took a deep shuddering breath while Tony sat there and slowly absorbed what it meant. "Barney said it too," Clint continued after a moment. "He promised he would never, but hedid."

Tony abruptly remembered the cold words the older Barton had thrown out at the prison, about 'what their dad used to say.' He recalled how Clint had paled, and then turned to stone before them all: cold and hard. "My _brother_ -" Clint choked a little on his words, took a steadying breath and then looked disgusted with himself. "Just thought you should know the worth of what you're arguing for."

Tony was building a time machine.

He was building a time machine and going back to when Clint's genetic donor was alive, and he was going to…to…with his hands…and there would be nothing left. _Nothing_.

Tony had _no idea_ what to say, but that had never stopped him before.

"Clint-" the large door across the lab opened. They both looked at it sharply, but not before he noticed Clint's demeanor shift from scarred to darkly suspicious of the potential threat entering the lab. Blue was front and center, Red was close on his heels with their two henchmen following.

"Get Barton prepped," Blue ordered, but the directive was clearly unnecessary as Red and the guards were already moving straight toward them. Clint pushed to his feet, jumped on to the metal bed and pressed as far from the front of the cage as possible. It was nowhere near far enough, and Tony's entire body went tight with dread.

"Forget Barton," Tony snarled as he pressed right up to the glass, slapping at it in a bid for their attention. "You wanted _me_ and you've got me," he slapped the glass again, "I'm _right here_!"

"Your selflessness is as useless as it is uncharacteristic," Blue replied, bored, from beside the workstation near the middle of the room. He didn't even look toward them as he examined something Tony couldn't see. "You'll have your turn, please be patient."

"Hurt him and-" Tony started.

"Yes yes, I've heard it before," the man interrupted, untroubled. "If you continue to be disruptive, Mr. Stark, I'm afraid we'll have no choice but to sedate you once more. Please, allow us to work in peace." It was rare that such clear warnings had any effect on him, but Tony…he couldn't miss this, couldn't leave Clint alone for this-

He _tried_ to be quiet as he watched them access Clint's cell. He could see Clint getting ready to attack, attention riveted on the three closing in, fingers twitching fractionally, left shoulder dropping slightly lower. Apparently they could sense it too and weren't in the mood for a fight. The female guard stepped in and with a strike, fast as a snake, she jabbed her charged baton right into Clint's gut.

Clint choked on air and folded over with a distressed whimper. He didn't fall off the metal slab, but he did go alarmingly wobbly. Tony broke his calm as she stepped forward and grabbed Clint's upper arm.

"Get the fuck away from him!" he roared. Her partner took Clint's other side and together they hauled him out of the cell. Tony threw himself at the glass, and it didn't even rattle from the force of his weight. He was so fucking useless here, trapped like a snarling animal. "Don't touch him!"

"This is your final warning, Mr. Stark," Blue advised, his attention on Clint as the teen began to regain his motor skill only a few feet from the cell. It was a fast acting stun, but Tony was willing to bet that fear was the motivating factor in this quick recovery. He bit down viciously on the inside of his cheek as they lifted Clint onto the examination table in the center of the room, slid him into place and strapped him down.

Clint thrashed with more and more energy as the seconds progressed, but it was too late. He was trapped, fists clenching and unclenching spastically as he tugged at the padded restraints. His chest heaving, he turned to look at Tony, eyes wide and nostrils flared. All the bravado he'd been holding on to since they'd woken up here, hell, since Tony had found him hiding under that fucking car, was gone. The only emotion on his face was terror. Pure and real and all encompassing. For a moment he was just a person scared for his life. He was a fucking _kid_! He was a kid lost and terrified and alone and Tony could do nothing but stand and watch.

Then Clint forced his fear away in favour of snarling and swearing and fighting, ignoring the tears that curled down his cheeks.

Tony would never forget this.

He stood pressed to the glass, fog marring it with each deep breath out, and he watched. He owed Clint this much.

Tony was going to tear these bastards apart.

At the table the two scientists stepped away from Clint. A light burned brightly from above him, so powerful that Tony was forced to look away.

When his vision cleared, Clint was still, and the world went silent.


	11. Growing Pains

The 'procedure' took less than a minute. Probably less than ten seconds all told. They kept Clint on the table for a short period after they zapped him, running tiny diagnostic wands over him like some kind of late night sci-fi TV special. Tony stood rigid and watched every moment, refusing to believe that this was it. Refusing to even think that Clint was anything but okay.

He was okay. He had to be okay. The scientists weren't panicking, but seeing as they weren't overly concerned in Clint's survival in the first place, that did little to comfort Tony.

Clint's limp hand balled into a fist and a weak keening wail filled the room before trailing off. Clint jerked at the padded cuffs that trapped him, and seemed to spasm briefly on the table before relaxing again.

Blue smiled, tight lipped and satisfied, while Red and Beard shook each other's hands with gusto. Congratulatory.

Tony remained still. He was too far to hear the soft conversation the scientists had over their subject, and had no choice but to watch and wait. It was another ten minutes before the guards stepped forward and unstrapped Clint. Clint slowly sat up, with multiple sets of hands gripping his shoulders and arms and back. He tried to shrug them off, shying from their touch, and then sagged in defeat. He didn't protest as he was given a pair of overly large pants that matched his white shirt and ordered to change.

He still looked the same. He looked like the underfed, pale, scrappy fourteen year-old he'd been turned into in the first place. One who tried to walk back to his cell under his own steam as the guards forcefully prodded him forward. Halfway there his right leg seemed to collapse under him and he nearly went down.

"Careful!" Blue snapped, and the male guard glowered prissily but said nothing as he heaved Clint back to his feet. The female guard looked unmoved either way. "We're changing his status to Priority Two, so try not to cause any more damage," he directed, and then swiftly left the room. Red walked behind the guards and watched with sharp eyes as they gently placed Clint on the metal bench in his cell.

"What does that mean, Priority Two?" Tony demanded, unable to hide his concern as he moved to press against the glass as close to the archer as possible. Red side-eyed him briefly, stepping into the cell to scan Clint one more time.

"It means," he answered with impatience, "that he's one step away from being worth something. You'd be Priority One, Mr. Stark." He stepped back and out of the cell, the guards following. "It means that if he survives this, another age regression, and the memory alteration, then he could be useful enough to keep. We won't know conclusively until he's trained."

Tony paced anxiously, practically vibrating with tension. Three short steps, twist, exhale, three short steps, twist, and inhale. He glared at Clint every time he approached him. Clint hadn't moved for ten minutes. Ten minutes.

His breathing was shallow, his body limp.

"Somebody needs to check him," Tony insisted, trying to sound reasonable instead of furious or panicked. He'd be impressed that he managed to come across as self-assured and confident, but he'd had too much practice with insanely disturbing abduction situations, so… "Unless you've decided to demote him to Priority Three, in which case by all means: let him be."

"His vitals are _fine_ ," Red countered with a snap, glaring at Tony. Okay, so Tony may have made this comment a few times in the last ten minutes.

"Yeah, I think _your_ definition of fine is more appalling than his," Tony nodded at the supine form in the next cell, and then held still. Clint was rolling onto his side, knees curling towards his stomach. He was close to falling off the bench. "Clint?" Tony asked cautiously. Clint curled more, almost on his stomach, a hand reaching out to grasp at the angled corner of the platform. His fingers slipped on it as they tried to find something to grip, splotching red and white from the strain. When his grip didn't hold he let out a wretched noise and slapped at the metal instead.

"Clint," Tony spoke as steadily as he could, eyes tracking over the kid, trying to pinpoint what was wrong. "Clint, breathe," he coached. Clint wasn't listening. Clint was hyperventilating, and shaking, and sounding like he was dying. "What's wrong with him?! Do something!" Tony snarled, turning to Red and twisting back to Clint just as quickly.

"He's fine," Red dismissed, fucking _blasé_ as Clint writhed. Tony was going to murder him. "We expected this."

"You _expected this_?" Tony gestured wildly towards Clint, and smashed the back of his hand against the glass.

"Of course," Red said, like Tony was being ridiculous, "the regressive molecular restructuring, or 'involution,' if you will, averages three minutes." He fucking lectured like Tony gave a shit about how their de-aging ray worked when Clint was shaking apart three feet from him! "We predict the massive molecular accretion he's experiencing at this moment will last much longer. Before you ask," he held up a hand to warn Tony off, "we are uncertain of how much longer as the primate test subjects were too varied for definite results and one did not survive."

Tony pressed his lips together and stared at Clint.

Jesus. Clint was going through a growth spurt, but instead of it taking place over years it was apparently going to all happen in a few hours.

Tony understood the tears leaking out the tightly squeezed eyes better now.

"Put me in there with him," he ordered, voice quiet. Red looked up, apparently responding to iciness better than rage.

"That's not going to happen, but I can mute the sound barrier in your cell so that you can't hear him," he offered, like he was doing Tony a favour. At least he was walking towards them now, no longer keeping to the middle of the room.

"No," Tony left no room for argument. "You will put me in there with him. Now."

"I understand your concern Mr. Stark, but-"

Clint sobbed. He _sobbed_ and then gagged, and then fell the two feet off the bench to smack loudly onto the floor. Tony turned his back on Clint and stared at Red.

"Put me in there with him or he will hurt himself." Red took a long look at Clint, and Tony spotted his indecision easily, and dug deeper. "I don't think your boss would appreciate his Priority Two asset becoming more damaged because you failed to do an appropriate risk assessment, do you?"

Red assessed his tablet, a goddamn _Starktablet,_ and frowned.

"His vitals are within expected levels-"

Clint keened quietly, and then cut himself off by deliberately slamming the back of his arm into the base of the metal cot. Four times. Red sighed, but clearly more with concern about having to explain the bruising than the actual torture he was witnessing. He looked up at the guard at the far end of the room and beckoned her over. She came with a tight frown.

"Sir?"

"Watch Mr. Stark. We're going to allow him into subject Barton's hold for the duration of his growth," he ordered. She did not look impressed as she pulled her stun baton and clearly prepared for Tony to attack as his cell door rolled open. He ignored her, rushing (perhaps unwisely, considering her tense state) the few steps to wait impatiently before Clint's cell.

"Come on, come on," he urged and Red, careful to keep Tony in his sights, frowned at the glass and tapped in the code. Tony still couldn't see a damn thing on the glass to indicate where the touchscreen was. It didn't matter now though, as the door came into view and Tony impatiently tried to squeeze through it before it was fully opened, which was awkward as he had to partially climb over the metal platform and subsequently smashed his shin. He didn't notice the sharp pain, too busy dropping down beside Clint.

"Hey," he damn near crooned, and floundered as his hands hovered over Clint's shoulder, unsure if he should touch. Heat radiated off of Clint in rolling waves. Tony could rewrite alien coding at the drop of a hat, but he floundered here, afraid to make it worse. "We need water and icepacks," he demanded of Red, who focused on the tablet again as the cell door closed.

"You don't-"

"Water and ice," Tony snarled, and Clint opened his eyes, glossy with pain and probably fever. The look he gave Tony, confused and not completely aware.

"Tony?" he mumbled, and Tony saw the faint tinge of red on one corner of his mouth where he'd bitten his lip.

"Yeah, Clint," he agreed. "You're- you're doing good, just got to hold on okay? This'll be over in no time," he offered, somewhat less smoothly than he had planned, but when in Rome. Clint blinked up at him and Tony twisted to sit on the hard ground, his back pressed to the glass with Clint between him and the safety of solid metal. He had the intent to drag Clint into his lap to make him more comfortable, but the guy took away that option when he shuddered violently, wriggled right up beside Tony and latched onto his left leg like his life depended on it. Arms curled over and under his thigh, the hug almost tight enough to hurt, Clint buried his face in his hip. Tony dug the fingers of his right hand into Clint's hair, and started rubbing gently between his shoulders with his left.

Tony should have been expecting the bite that came not long after that.

Clint screamed through the wave of pain, fingers digging tight where he gripped and teeth were prevented from cutting Tony only because of the protection afforded by his pants.

Tony clenched his teeth at the pain, but held on.

When Clint finally went still, passing out from the pain, Tony counted it as a blessing and wrapped his right hand around the closest wrist, resting his fingers on Clint's pulse point. He held on.

Tony lost any semblance of time as Clint woke up in pulses, twisting and groaning, sweating and making noises that sounded like he was dying, before he would lose consciousness again. He didn't protest as Beard and Red came in and injected Clint with a super nutrient and hydration booster every half hour or so, not willing to risk Clint's health by fighting them.

Tony watched as Clint's body literally grew before his eyes. Pale flesh pulled taut and filled out over bones in slow motion; a human sized transformation that reminded Tony of Bruce and Hulk. He wondered if it hurt this way for Bruce every time he changed, or if this was worse because it was taking fucking _forever_.

Tony stared unblinking out beyond the glass of their prison and watched as Blue and Red worked. He didn't know how much time had passed as he caught snippets of their soft conversation, wondering at why they never seemed concerned about him overhearing what they had to say. Arrogant, smug, sociopathic- he was distracted by his judgments, therefore he wasn't prepared to be attacked from inside their cell.

Swift and sudden as it was, _attack_ might be too strong a label he thought charitably, if not grumpily. Tony grasped his side where the surprise punch had landed and resisted rubbing the back of his head where he had smacked it against the glass when he'd been shoved with shocking strength. Blinking, he scrambled to look at Clint, who was apparently awake and older…and confused as fuck if the wide eyes and flaring nostrils were any indicator.

The fact that the guy was pressed into the opposite corner of the small space and was crouched defensively was also a pretty big hint as to his state of mind.

Clint didn't look older than twenty, max. And he was shaking like a leaf as he impatiently wiped sweat from over his right eye and glared at Tony.

"Easy," Tony tried to soothe, and checked the back of his head to see if it had been cut in Clint's retreat. There was no blood on his fingertips at least, so that was something. "It's just me."

Clint didn't seem impressed as he regarded Tony. It was the look he pulled out when he had someone he really wanted to shoot in his sights. Tony rarely got to see it as he generally fought at the opposite corner from Hawkeye, but he recognized that this one was colder than what he was familiar with. Harder. It was chilling and Tony decided to try a new tactic and remain _absolutely still_ so as to not startle his very on edge and scarily dangerous cellmate. Clint's gaze darkened as he quickly realized they were trapped in a glorified test tube, and then settled on Tony once more. His breaths were heavy, his stare assessing. Tony gave him a moment to take it in, and then he gave him a few more because he was a fan of testing limits, but not when he couldn't get a decent read on potential reactions.

Clint blinked slowly, frowned, and did that tiny little head shake Tony had seen countless times by now. Recognition seemed to be a thing that was happening as some of the severity (not all, mind you) fell away from Clint's cold blue eyes. Hallelujah.

"Stark-" his voice cracked and he cleared it roughly, swallowing, and tried again. "Tony Stark?" he asked and Tony slowly displayed both hands, open and empty. Nothing dangerous here, he was just guy in a box with no chance of beating Clint in hand-to-hand combat. Nothing to fear from him.

"The one and only. Were you expecting someone else?" he asked carefully, and Clint's gaze tightened. He was shaking hard enough that Tony could see it through the white material that stretched over his knees and shoulders.

"I don't expect anything," Clint snarled, the unfamiliar coldness flashed across his face. He shook his head again and cleared his throat once more. Tony very slowly, telegraphing his movements as clearly as he could, reached down for the water bottle he'd been given by Red what felt like ages ago. He tipped it on its side and rolled it across the floor to Clint.

Clint didn't reach for it when it came to rest at his heel, choosing to remain crouched, still, and wary. The silence was strained and Tony itched to disrupt it, but refrained. He had the feeling Clint needed to break this silence, needed the chance to get his thoughts straight…and he didn't want to lose a hand. As usual, it didn't take long, but it wasn't exactly the favourable outcome Tony had been hoping for.

"I haven't seen you in _years,_ " Clint muttered. His shoulders twitched and he shook his head again. "Not since-" he broke off, and looked at their surroundings once more. Realization dawned and the dangerous hostility that surrounded him dissipated drastically. He didn't relax, but Tony was definitely no longer in imminent danger; at least not from this tightly strung twenty-year old version of Clint.

He let out a breath; that had been tense.

"We're _still_ in this shithole?" Clint demanded, somewhat incredulous and still confused. Clearly Clint was regaining his memories as he'd aged, and Tony had taken into consideration, as he'd watched him grow agonizingly slowly, that Clint _might not_ remember him or any of the Avengers with clarity. They had only been a part of his world for a few weeks in the grand timeline of his young life and Tony didn't know how the memory would transfer as Clint re-aged. He figured now that they had made enough of an impression that Clint remembered them, but he was clearly still in a pre-Avengers age, and was most likely still pre-SHIELD. More directly Tony had hoped Clint would remember him. He'd kind of, selfishly perhaps, wanted to be a spot of good in a clearly fucked-up life, but at the very least he didn't want to be relegated to the category of 'dangerous target' in the eyes of an unfriendly child-assassin. In the eyes of a friend.

"Yeah, we're still the unwilling guests of Dr. Evil and his uninspiring underlings. I expect the cavalry should be by any minute though, we've just gotta hang tight."

"Yeah," Clint agreed and looked at the lab beyond them once more, eyes flickering rapidly over everything. "They'll want you back," he concluded, off hand, and Tony pressed his lips together unhappily.

"Pretty sure they're probably more concerned about _you_ at this point," Tony clarified, because it was most likely true. They still thought Clint was a teenager, and that would make everyone even more anxious than normal.

"Well they shouldn't be," Clint muttered as he continued to scan the lab, "I'm not gonna hurt you and I doubt I could hurt any of them without my bow. Wouldn't want to even if I did have it," he concluded. Tony mentally spluttered at how incorrectly Clint had interpreted his explanation as Clint reached down for the water bottle and cracked it open, unconcerned. Tony realized the archer's dexterity was off when he fumbled the cap before he raised the bottle to his lips and downed half of it in one pull. Lowering the water, Clint hesitated and then held it out to Tony, as if uncertain that sharing limited resources with a near stranger was the smart move. He did it anyway. Tony waved the offer off. It wasn't like they were being starved: they wanted Tony and Clint moderately healthy so they could keep them for their very own.

Clint finished the bottle, tilted bodily to the side with a sudden grimace, and finally sat down properly on the floor. He rubbed at his temple, and stared at Tony.

"You look the same," he muttered, and Tony valiantly didn't respond to that, because it was pretty obvious _why_ he looked the same. Clint seemed to rethink his comment, and glared like Tony had said something anyway. "I just…never thought I'd see you again, especially not after the last five years, but you're…we're both still fucking _here,"_ he gestured, like Tony need the extra demonstration to understand the enormity of this. "I mean, _shit!_ This is such a fucking gong show." Clint pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes, rubbing roughly before dropping his hands to rest on the bench and his lap respectively, before lifting again to rub agitatedly through his hair. "Everything's just…such a mess," he grumbled softly. He seemed to realize that he was rambling then because he pressed his lips together in annoyance. If he had planned on saying anything more he was derailed with a gargled whimper that he ruthlessly cut off. Tony tensed as he watched Clint curl over his lap in a manner that was all too familiar by this point. It took a lot of restraint to not reach forward and try to help Clint through the growth spasm, because he was pretty sure this older Clint would _not_ take to the aid well. The days of comforting through touch might be over for a while, and Clint had clearly gained a better handle on pain management at this age; he hadn't made any distressed sounds beyond the first and his half-lidded gaze was keeping an untrusting watch, mostly on Tony.

Tony felt ill all over again as he watched Clint control his reactions to the pain, and breathed deep.

"We'll get back to the Tower and sort it all out." Tony tried for distraction.

"Is that what we'll do?" Clint asked bitterly through clenched teeth. "Still think I'm a part of your team?" He looked up at Tony bleakly and sneered. "You _still_ think I'm worth keeping? You going to rehabilitate me?"

"Not sure much needs rehabilitating," Tony waved the statement off with an air of confidence he did not feel, "but Pepper might have something to say about all the profanity; she'll be worried it will damage Thor's sense of propriety." Clint stared hard at him; the look downright unnerving, before his right eye twitched and he started examining his clothes.

"You don't let anything go, do you?" he snorted derisively, looking to drop the subject.

"No, not when it matters," Tony agreed immediately. Clint looked baffled again, and too fucking young, and then there were bodies on the other side of the glass that effectively ended their conversation. Tony swiftly looked over and up to find Blue looking Clint over intently with his dark eyes. Tony's unease rolled through his chest. Clint and Tony remained very still as they watched Blue input the 'invisible' code for the door to open. There were four guards as well as the bearded scientist on the other side of the glass. This time they were all well armed with tasers, and one of the guards had what Tony assessed was a tranquilizer gun.

"Time for some tests, Barton," Blue ordered, keeping to the side of the door as it spun open, "we need to confirm that you're progressing as well as our readings suggest."

"Fuck that noise," Tony growled and pushed to his feet, meaning to step between Clint and the guards and not giving a shit about the weapons trained on them. Clint didn't let him. The archer was on his feet and he shoved Tony back into the glass again with one firm hand on his chest. At least he used less force this time.

"Don't," Clint warned softly, blue speckled gaze an unreadable mix of emotions at such close proximity. He was already losing energy, his body slumping forward as he braced himself on Tony before two guards pulled his hands behind his back and secured them with handcuffs. The familiar female guard gave Tony a withering look before they hauled Clint from the cell once more. Tony stayed pressed against the glass, focused on what a fucking failure he was at protecting Clint. Fuck.

"Don't be so impatient, Mr. Stark," Blue said imperiously as Clint was slowly directed across the lab, "we will be able to progress with your transition once we're through here. Perhaps then you can cease your unproductive worrying." Beyond him Clint pulled at his wrists imperceptibly, testing the length of the chain. His fingers flexed once. Tony moved to stand before Blue, squaring his shoulders as he met the bastard's gaze head on.

"You know what I think?" Tony found that he didn't care to keep the snide mockery from his tone. Blue gazed back at him with his ever-present air of superiority.

"Please, enlighten me," Blue allowed, as though he were doing Tony a favour by granting him an audience. Tony bared his teeth in a nasty smile.

"I think," Tony drawled, and grinned a little wider feeling slightly crazed and edgy and vindictive, "that you should have brought more guards."

Blue frowned at him, and turned sharply to look where Tony's attention had drifted to Clint, yelling in warning.

He was too late.

To say Clint fought elegantly would be a lie. He was fast, he was smooth, but there was nothing elegant about it.

He fought dirty.

He was brutal.

He didn't fight to win; he fought to survive.

The guards had expected a fight, but they hadn't expected Clint. Tony did not understand this oversight at all, but he was thankful for it, because it slowed their reactions.

Between one moment and the next Clint dropped low, forcing the two guards that held his arms to stumble and lose their grips, but even as he did that he kicked out with his left leg. The heel of his bare foot drove right into the side of the male guard's knee. Tony heard it clearly snap from across the room, right before the pained scream and thump as the guard collapsed into a ball and clutched at his leg.

Clint moved on before the guy had hit the ground, twisting to face the female guard as he rebalanced in a low crouch on the ground. He launched himself into the air, high enough that when he kicked out with both feet simultaneously he slammed them high into her chest. She flew backwards violently, arms flailing wildly in the air as he treated her like a springboard, using the momentum to fly backwards himself. Clint's back hit the metal examination table, slid across its short expanse and he threw himself into a backwards roll effortlessly. There was a ping as one of the remaining guards fired his taser, but it hit the table's empty surface; limp wires trailed from the weapon to where the prongs skid across the floor beyond. Clint had already disappeared over its edge. The guard, who was almost as large as Steve, ejected the cartridge to reload as he quickly rounded the table to get a clear shot.

Clint popped back up from where he had landed, and his hands were now bound in front of his body. He leapt for the guard, whose eyes went wide as he brought up the taser once more. Too slow. Clint wrapped his fingers around the hand holding the weapon while simultaneously driving his other fist down on the guy's elbow. The guard's arm folded like a cheap cigar, and between one blink and the next the taser was pressed into his throat and Clint pulled the trigger. The man shook spastically as he crashed to the floor, out of Tony's line of sight.

Blue seemed to finally catch on exactly how badly he had lost control, but to be fair Tony's internal clock stated it had been less than eight seconds since Clint had launched his attack. Blue started running for the far door.

Clint dove back over the examination table, this time on his belly. Tony swallowed at the blank look of absolute concentration on Clint's young face, and held his breath as he watched. Clint reached out with his bound hands for the floor, where he tucked into a front roll, sprang to his feet and lunged for something on the medical cart that had been placed conveniently nearby.

Another taser shot missed him by inches, but he didn't seem concerned with his eyes focused on Blue, who was almost to the doors. With an awkward looking twist Clint made a throwing motion with his arms, and Tony watched something sail through the air and impale itself in the retreating scientist's back. The man made a startled noise, his shoulders drawing back in shock, as the second item Clint had thrown almost simultaneously hit the first. Blue pitched forward and crashed to the ground with a graceless flop, a syringe protruding from just below his right shoulder blade. His body slid the last few feet to the door, which offered the courtesy of halting his momentum as he crashed into it. Almost exactly three feet above him stood the untouched emergency alarm.

Tony whipped his gaze back to Clint in time to see that the guard had switched the taser out for the tranquilizer gun, and fired it without hesitation. Clint had already raised the tray he'd grabbed the syringe off of, the items on it scattering wildly as he swung it up in time to deflect the first tranquilizer dart. It clinked loudly off the stainless steel. The guard re-aimed. Off to their side, the female guard was regaining her feet, her face red from trying to catch her breath, her eyes coldly calculating. Another shot from the gun was fired, and Clint used the tray to deflect that shot as well. The dart hit the female guard in the shoulder. She flinched, ripped it out furiously, and then dropped to her knees. She did this with such resistance that it seemed to happen in slow motion to Tony.

The guard with the tranquilizer didn't try to fire a third time and instead threw himself bodily at Clint. Clint kicked him in the balls, ripped the gun from his hand as he crumbled, and shot him point blank between his shoulder blades. It couldn't have been more than twenty seconds, thirty tops, and all four armed guards, and one scientist was down.

Clint heaved a deep breath from where he was hunched over, almost hugging himself, and Tony nearly choked on his own spit trying to warn him of the last threat. There was one more person in the room!

"Clint-" he hollered, but was a moment too late as Beard, the freaking platinum-follicle _scientist_ , emerged from behind the table that held the monitoring equipment. Or more like he appeared _over_ the equipment, one hand planted firmly on the table for maximum stability as he leapt over it. His feet had barely touched the ground and he was executing a roundhouse kick to the head. Clint brought his arms up just in time to block it, but there was enough force behind the kick to knock him off balance and send the gun flying. Instead of trying to stabilize himself Clint travelled with its force, tucking into a shoulder roll and springing back onto his feet. Beard followed, his lab coat billowing dramatically behind him as he launched attack after attack.

Tony could do nothing but watch, seeing every blow land on both sides, the violent dance tearing at the last of Clint's reserves as he blocked one move after the other and his own advances became slower, weaker. Beard didn't grin or mock or gloat as he fought. Blood coated the knuckles on his right hand from a hit that re-split Clint's lip, and he favoured his left side after a vicious close quarters elbow from Clint. He got a hand in Clint's hair and slammed him backwards into the exam table, pressing close, and like a pitiless ninja he had one of the tables restraints secured around Clint's wrist; effectively locking his hands, and therefore his upper body, down.

Clint's eyes went wide. His panic was an unmistakable, bright splash of emotion on his otherwise robotic fighting face. Beard took a slight step back, one hand still clasped around the restraint, the other wrapped in Clint's short hair. They were both breathing heavily as the scientist took in the destruction throughout the room, and looked back at Clint.

"You will definitely be a useful tool," he said, and released Clint with a condescending pat on the cheek. Clint flinched away, hunched over the table. He yanked violently at the restraints, shoulders heaving. He kept his eyes locked on the scientist as the man stepped back. The rage creeping in was obvious in every line of Clint's tensed body. Beard turned to move away, and Clint struck out, so swiftly that his moves weren't telegraphed. Tony watched as his teammate braced himself using the restraints and table and thrust his legs high. With wickedly acute reflexes he had the back of one bare foot cupping around the side of the scientist's neck, toes flexing to hook him in a little more securely even as the ball of his other foot struck out at his chin. The man didn't have a chance to rip himself away from the startling attack, and then it was too late. He collapsed, his neck twisted and too loose to be anything but broken.

Together they crashed to the ground. Clint's legs landed with a lack of his usual balance, his chest hit the table, and his chin smacked off its surface before he could catch himself. His arms were stuck above his head and he gathered himself enough to push to a half crouch over the table. His locked arms were crooked as though he was preparing to rip the restraint from the table with a bicep curl worthy of Steve, when he stilled. Frozen in place he stared with wide eyes at the scientist that lay still at his feet.

Clint looked horrified. He looked like he was going to be violently ill. He looked like he wanted to bend over the scientist and make sure he wasn't actually dead.

He looked scared and desperate.

A loud groan from the first guard shattered the stillness Clint had adopted, and just like that his face had remolded back into that robotic mask of concentration. He took a deep breath and steadied his balance. Then, with alarming dexterity, he stretched out with his bare foot and began digging at the dead scientists chest. He pulled away after a moment with what Tony assumed was a pen secured between his toes. With yet another demonstration of flexibility he bent his knee and lifted his leg to pass the tool into his waiting hand. Tony heard a faint crack and watched Clint's shoulders shift, until the assassin straightened and pushed himself off of the steel surface, leaving the cuffs behind. He didn't look at Beard as he stepped over the body, his gaze scanning the room quickly as he moved. He stopped to pick up the tranquilizer gun and continued to the guard who was still whimpering over his very broken knee. The man stared up at Clint, shaking and red faced. Clint didn't bother pointing the gun at him as he glanced down with detachment.

"Key," he ordered softly, and the guard fumbled in his pocket with a trembling hand and slowly produced a key to the cuffs. Clint tucked the gun into the waistband of his pants, and then bent down with his wrists held out in expectation. The guard wasn't stupid at least; it took two tries for him to be able to slip the key into one of the locks and twist, but he did so without complaint. Clint swiftly pulled away and barely a moment later both his hands were free. He bent down and grabbed the guard by the back of his shirt. The guard choked on a cry of pain, and then just choked as Clint dragged him along the floor towards Tony. When he wasn't very far away he dropped him and the guy curled over his leg again with a rather sad whimper.

"Stay," Clint ordered with a rough growl that sounded too deep to be coming from such a young face, because he seriously couldn't be older than twenty. In the few steps to Tony's cell Clint stumbled and had to catch himself on the glass. Tony automatically pressed his hand to where Clint rested on the other side, and watched as he shuddered through what could be any number of issues, but Tony suspected was still related to his regrowth.

An unfamiliar shudder vibrated through the floor, and it seemed to be enough to stir Clint back into action as he looked up sharply to the door at the far end of the room. There was a digital panel above it that was now flashing a rapid red in what must be an alarm, but the lights in the room remained the same.

There had been an explosion, Tony was sure of it.

"Cavalry's here," Tony decided, in case Clint didn't know, or remember, to expect the help that he would normally be prepared for. Clint looked at him in concentration.

"Your team?" he checked with a frown and Tony managed to not swear with irritation. It wasn't Clint's fault his mind was a skittles mix of messed up and twisted-timeline-rainbows at the moment.

"Our team," Tony corrected pointedly, a declaration to which the still too young archer responded with a quick, false smile as he moved to the front of the glass.

"Sure," Clint agreed, and stopped where the invisible keypad supposedly was.

"You'll need the guard to punch in the code," Tony offered, and then cocked his head to the side in contemplation, "or you'll need his contacts." The guard in question twitched at this, like maybe he thought Clint would get them by gouging out his eyes.

Clint looked at Tony like he was dumber than macaroni without cheese.

"We watched them punch it in a few minutes ago, why the hell would we need his contacts?" he snorted, and then proceeded to tap at the glass like he could see exactly where the touchscreen was. The glass locking Tony in his abhorred prison began to slide open. "Did they hit you in the head too?" Clint checked, already turning back to the guard, who hadn't moved, and therefore didn't see the look Tony was trying to share with him. Clint loomed over the guard once more, right beside his damaged knee, and pressed his lips together as he contemplated him. Tony squeezed out of his prison as soon as he could fit, and finally felt like he could breathe again.

"You don't get paid enough for this," Clint decided for the guard and looked pointedly at his broken knee before he stared back into his face with intent. "Are the codes for the doors out of here all the same?"

"Yeah," the guy nodded immediately, any bravado non-existent as he stared up at Clint, "all the way out of the building. Different from your cells, though," and then he rattled off a seven digit code without being prompted. Clint stared at him, jaw grinding back and forth a moment and he twitched one foot slightly closer to the man's knee. "No tricks!" The guy instantly wailed. "I swear! They won't set off any alarms, and once you bypass the lab-pods there's only the main door out of the hangar, and it has a visible touch pad!"

Clint waited one more moment, and another faint shudder from a distant explosion, this one smaller than the last, vibrated up Tony's legs. Clint pulled out the tranq gun, shot the guard in the arm, and reached down to yank the taser from its holster and stun baton from the guard's hip. Clint shoved both at Tony with the clear expectation that Tony would take them and moved swiftly to the third guard he'd dropped and proceeded to take off his boots. Tony felt better now that he had a weapon in hand. He also hadn't realized it was possible to remove and don footwear so quickly, but apparently Clint did most things at warp speed. He was up and moving towards the back doors with his gun raised and Tony followed closely.

"Stay behind me and be quiet," Clint ordered and moved to punch in the code to the door. Tony stopped him with a quick hand around his wrist and Clint went rigid. He turned just his head and glared warningly at Tony. Tony glared right back.

"You don't give the orders here." He barely refrained from tagging on _kid_ at the end of that, but he also carefully retracted his fingers from around Clint's still outstretched arm. "And you don't need to protect me; I'm not your responsibility."

"But I'm yours?" Clint sneered, with less venom than he probably intended.

 _Yes,_ Tony wanted to say, but decided against it: Clint took care of himself, just like Tony did.

Except when they didn't…it's just that Clint didn't seem to really remember that right now. He still seemed to be doing fine in the badass protection department though, so small mercies.

"We cover each other's backs," Tony reminded firmly, "and then we burn this place to the ground, set off some fireworks and go get some shwarma." Clint blinked at him, and then shook his head with a reluctant smile.

"You're kind of messed up, huh?" he decided, and Tony shrugged, because which of them wasn't? But seriously, his plan was completely legit. "You stay behind me and be quiet," Clint ordered again, and then grinned wide, "and cover my six. We'll scan room by room, and when we know it's clear we'll go meet up with the team. Unless you object to getting out of here…" he trailed off, sarcastic asshole. Tony answered by waving magnanimously at the door.

Clint smirked, looked at the access pad that sat where a doorknob should be; it was just as blank as the screen on Tony's cell had been. Clint tapped at it. The door swished open almost silently. Clint was instantly in the threshold, pressed against the frame with his tranquilizer weapon raised and scanning the space beyond.

"Clear," he uttered. Tony glared at Clint half-heartedly but didn't contest the speedy assessment. He might not know _this_ Clint particularly well _,_ but he was well versed with his efficiency.

Stopping over Blue, Tony pulled back a foot and kicked the man once, hard. He'd rather he was awake for it, but he didn't have the luxury to wait and he wasn't letting the man get away without at least one bruise. Maybe a broken rib if his aim was true. Dark satisfaction burned in his chest as their tormentor remained limp, and Tony noted the syringe protruding from his back. He spied a vial on the ground by his elbow and realized it must have been the projectile Clint had used to depress the plunger. He knew Clint was at a genius level when it came to psychomotor abilities, but this was almost unreal.

He looked up as he heard his kinesthetic wonder-man stumble, and he was by Clint's side in an instant, snatching up the tranq gun from where Clint had laid it on the counter before him. Tony sighted the room in general and guided the weapon between the two sets of doors in preparation while Clint breathed in rapid, strained puffs of air at his side. He'd collapsed to one knee and he didn't complain that Tony had scooped up his weapon even though his squinting eyes still scanned the area.

Tony shoved his taser in his pants pocket and reached for Clint's shoulder. Clint allowed the touch and Tony was not happy with the heat that still radiated off his teammate. The material that stretched snugly across his back was damp with sweat.

Red lights continued to flash above the doors, and Tony thought he could hear some yelling in the distance, but that was it. He looked around the room, eyeing the medical equipment sitting on a variety of surfaces and the spare examination tables lining the walls on their left with an exposed shower stall beside them. Tall cabinets that held what looked like an assortment of medical equipment, and large cooling units that were packed with vials, packages of blood, saline, and who knew what else also filled the busy space. He wondered if the vials in the fridge contained his and Clint's blood.

Clint shifted and pulled himself back to his feet. Tony watched as he used the table to brace himself but at least his breathing was steadier, if extremely controlled.

"How frequent are the growth spurts and is the pain constant?" he demanded, and Clint gave him a suspicious look from under his furrowed brow. Tony glared right back and kept his tone even. "I need to know when to expect it so that I can cover for you. You're not in this alone, Clint, but if we get shot because you're too stubborn to admit when you're in debilitating pain than you're a bigger idiot than I thought."

"Fuck you," Clint replied, but it lacked conviction as he straightened and held his hand out for the gun. Tony handed it over without hesitation, which seemed to surprise Clint. He rolled his shoulders once, and looked at the warning lights over the doors. "The spasms come and go, there's no pattern and no warning. I'm good the rest of the time." He started moving to the nearest exit and Tony was at his side this time, keeping an eye on the rest of the room. He didn't believe that Clint was clear of pain between growth-attacks, but he wasn't going to call him on it; Tony's own noggin was ringing with an ache that had refused to go away since he'd awoken.

"Seriously though," Tony spoke in hushed, irritated tones as they wove through the equipment in the brightly lit room…was that an MRI? "How are you seeing the digital panel for the door codes? What's the trick?"

"There's no _trick_ ," Clint stopped at the door, cocking his head like he could hear through it, and pointed at the panel with his free hand. The completely _blank_ panel. "It's _right there_ : grid pattern with scrambled numbers."

"I can't see anything," Tony frowned at the panel and Clint cut him a look.

"You don't have my eyes," he said, like an annoying little shit.

"Fair warning, when we're out of here I'm taking a closer look," Tony said, itching to get right in Clint's face to see if there was something that physically stood out, but damn it! Now was not the time!

"Sure," Clint capitulated far too easily, and then deftly tapped in the invisible code. The doors slid open and they stepped through. There were two men standing with their backs to them at the far end of the nodular room. One had a gun in hand and was peering intently out the window imbedded in the door.

 _Phwink phwink._ Clint's weapon puffed softly in Tony's ears and the men collapsed without ever knowing they were there. It was short work crossing the room where Clint swiftly picked up the gun and promptly handed his tranq gun to Tony.

"Two darts left," he informed him gruffly as he peeked out the small window, effectively blocking Tony's view, before he stepped back and went to the remaining unchecked door on their right. "That looks like the door out of here," he nodded back at the door they were walking away from, and he had the other doors open before Tony had a chance to catch up. The jackass was in and out of the space in seconds, making Tony feel like a dolt for even trying to catch up to him to cover his back. At least he was shaking his head in a sharp negative, so Tony knew all their immediate threats were dealt with. "Sleeping area," Clint explained, "no adjoining rooms, the place is clear." He moved back to their apparent exit, stepped over the unconscious men, and gazed out the small window again. He made Tony feel old when he moved that quickly, and Tony was _not_ old, nor was he slow.

There was a distant roar that was met by the sound of heavy weapons fire, and Tony tensed. He had not expected this place to be so heavily guarded, or heavily armed, despite the clearly nefarious dealings that were taking place here. He worried about what kind of tech the unknown force outside could be using against their team. Clint tucked his gun in the back of his shiny white pants, reached down and grabbed at the body closest to his feet. He quickly began to drag him across the room, clear out of their way.

"Move him," he ordered, and Tony didn't see the point of the task but did as asked because he didn't want another argument to slow their retreat.

He heard the telltale slide of a door open when he was almost where Clint had deposited his own guard, and his gut twisted. He dropped the man without a care and looked up, but he already knew what he would see, and he was not happy to be proven correct. Clint stepped backwards through the open exit and his gaze was locked on Tony as he slapped something beyond his periphery. Tony _ran_ , furious. The door sealed shut when he was just three steps away and he slammed into it, hard, in anger- and because he was moving too fast to stop in time.

He should have seen this coming. He _should_ have anticipated it.

"Clint," he said as calmly as he could as he looked out the small rectangular window. Clint was watching him back from hooded blue eyes. There was another roar somewhere beyond the door that trapped only Tony now. "Open the door."

"Can't do that, Tony," Clint's voice was muffled, but audible. "You're in the clear in there, nobody's going to be getting up any time soon. Sit tight, your team is almost here."

" _Our team,_ Clint! Ours! They're not just here for me! Now open the fucking door!" Tony might be losing his cool, just a little. Clint licked his lips, looked off to his left, and looked back at Tony, a sad smile on his face.

"We both know I can't go back with you. It was never going to work."

"Stop being such a fatalistic drama queen! Open the door and we'll discuss your deep-seated abandonment issues back home-"

"It's not _my_ home!" Clint slammed his own hand against the door, hard enough that Tony felt the faint thump of it where his own hand was pressed to the metal. "Maybe if I'd stayed when I was a kid, but now it's too late-" he cut off, shook his head violently and fell into the door barely getting his hands up in time to brace against it. His eyes slid shut in unmistakable pain before they abruptly snapped wide open and he jerked back. He regarded his surroundings with unusually stilted movement, still using the door to brace himself, and then noticed Tony staring at him through the glass. Tony tried to hide his anxiety as Clint squinted at him. He seemed unfortunately confused. "Tony?" He checked, clearly incredulous.

"Yeah Clint," Tony swallowed thickly and nodded. "Yeah, it's me. Open the door okay?" He tried, in the hopes that Clint would punch the code in without question. Clint frowned and looked away and Tony just figured that would be too easy.

"Still here," Clint pronounced to himself a moment later, apparently unsurprised and nearly inaudible to Tony. Tony's hope sank, and Clint looked at him through the glass, situational recognition back in his gaze, mixed with an unhealthy dose of bitterness and longing. He smiled thinly at Tony.

"Your guys are just around the corner, Stark, you'll be out of here in a minute."

"Like hell, Clint!" He argued straightaway, not liking the look on the archer's face at all. "Just open the door and we'll sort out your issues, okay? Or at least we'll try," Tony waved at him somewhat fatalistically. "You know the score, you know this is just temporary-"

"If that's true then I'm sure I'll come crawling back to you at some point," Clint countered, and then he was moving away, just like that, and all Tony could see was a surprisingly large amount of space beyond the door that led to metal buildings and a wall that curved up far beyond his view.

"Clint!" Tony pressed his face into the glass to try and see where he went, and he heard an odd thump-scrape on the wall to his right. It quickly drifted overhead and became nearly inaudible as it travelled back the way they had come just minutes before. "Fuck," he muttered, and followed Clint's path to the next room, though Tony's journey ended there. He bee-lined it to the fridge and cabinets against the left wall, the ones that looked like they held all the interesting chemicals, and yanked the doors open to scan the contents. "Crawling back," he mimicked darkly to himself as he grabbed several glass bottles and one tiny vial filled with a delightful blue liquid, "you idiot."

He wasn't worried about Clint not coming back to them, so to speak, because once he 'grew-up' again he'd have no reason not to come home. "Stupid, short-sighted little shit," Tony muttered under his breath as he mixed the three liquids carefully together in one of their containers. The obvious problem was that Clint wasn't in his right mind yet. His body was spazzing out on him without warning and he was running around in a danger zone without back-up, most likely climbing things that were stupidly high and getting in the way of bullets. Clint was going to get himself killed in his attempt to run away, and he couldn't come back to them if he was dead.

Please, like Tony would ever let him get away with _that_.

Chemicals mixed, he moved quickly but gingerly back to the forward room, carefully splashed a little on the base of the door that was successfully blocking his exit, and then he placed the bottle in the tiny puddle that had formed.

He backed away and looked around for some cover. The room was still mostly empty, but there was a large stainless steel table tucked up against the wall. He flipped it over, delighted with the crash that echoed through the room and he anticipated the damage he was about to do with glee. He pushed it so the legs were braced against the back wall, maneuvered behind it, and pulled out the shock baton Clint had liberated for him earlier. He efficiently broke the safety mechanism and a tiny, continuous current of electricity burst to life at its tip.

"Nobody locks Tony in the corner," he muttered to himself, took aim, and tossed the baton towards his chemical creation. He ducked behind his table swiftly and tucked in a tight protective ball with hands over his ears and eyes closed.

He waited, two seconds. Five seconds. Nothing happened and he frowned. That wasn't right. He was expecting a much bigger reaction than that. He peeked carefully over the edge, took in the situation, and rolled his eyes at himself. The baton was lying nearly three feet away from his target, the sparking end facing the completely wrong direction.

He glowered at it. It was times like these he remembered that his overhand wasn't always as accurate as he envisioned.

"Fuck it," he announced to the empty room and pulled the taser from his pocket.

Projectile weapons, on the other hand, he rarely had problems aiming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently I miscounted and there are 13, not 12, chapters. So, yay?


	12. Levelling Out

SHIELD records had this location listed as a storage facility, mainly for reserve transports like SUVs, motorcycles, a few helicopters and planes. Sneaking in the side door of the small hangar wasn't difficult, and as expected the vehicles stood in mass silent sentry, illuminated by minimal light. It was supposed to be manned by fifteen people: twelve guards, two mechanics, and a supervisor.

The hangar wasn't overly large, and there were four guards actively patrolling it in shifts. They were far more alert than she would have expected them to be so early in the morning, this deep in the deserted lands of Nevada, especially as Sitwell's quinjet had not triggered any of the facilities proximity alarms. Natasha removed the security men from their posts quickly and quietly, then activated her radio as she moved like a shadow to the back of the facility.

"Clear," she said softly as she examined the back wall. On close inspection, it was pretty obvious that there was a large, camouflaged, bay door right in the center, and a regular sized door to its side. She stopped beside it and kept her back to the wall to wait. It was only moments before Thor, Rogers, and Rhodes joined her. They weren't particularly quiet in their approach, which is why she had insisted on heading in alone. Bruce and Sitwell were remaining in the jet for now.

"Doors are double-paned, at least four inches thick, and swing out. There's a bio-reader installed for identification." She gestured at the hand and eye scanner set in the wall. It looked like an oddly modern water fountain. "Cameras are imbedded just above its frame and it has sensitivity sensors built into the surface. We also need a code to access it."

"So basically," Rhodes said, "there's no way to make a silent approach."

"Not beyond this room," she agreed. She hadn't left any guards awake to get the access code from, and they might not even know it as an extra security precaution. Beside Rhodes, Rogers looked at the nearly camouflaged door, looked at Natasha and then indicated that they should clear the space around it.

"Sitwell," he spoke, "we're going in hot."

"Understood," Sitwell's tone was predictably bored. "Just make sure they're actually the bad guys before you start taking names." The look Rogers gave the door was not a pleasant one.

"It would only be polite," he agreed. "Thor, if you would knock for us please."

"With pleasure, Captain," Thor agreed, and stepped to the door. Natasha pulled her first gun from her thigh holster, not bothering to check that her widow's bite was charged; they always were.

Thor introduced Mjolnir to the door with a force built from anger and impatience. Hinges on the outside or not, the thick obstruction caved into the room beyond with an immense boom, taking a good portion of the wall surrounding it along for the ride. The ground trembled as it slid and bounced across the floor beyond. There wasn't a lot of dust to conceal their entrance into the room beyond, but with that introduction she figured flashbangs and a full scale blackout would fail to conceal them.

The space beyond was massive. Easily ten stories high, perhaps closer to fifteen, it was framed with a complicated web of crisscrossing metal beams that rounded over to meet in the middle far above them. It was deep enough that it housed entire buildings running along its sides and looked to end, in the considerable distance, with a series of white pod like structures. She would say it was an old airship hangar, but the construction was obviously far too new. She glanced back at the rounded structures in the far distance.

Instinct and experience told her that was her target.

Fifteen feet before them three armed men stared in alarm. A fourth lay on the ground beside the door, groaning. Judging by the looks on their face, they weren't going to be friendly. Based on the information she'd pried from Mr. Samuels earlier she had been anticipating that.

"Good Evening," Rhodes spoke into the tense quiet that had fallen amongst the debris, his synthesized voice echoed loudly in the cavernous space. "We're looking for some friends of ours. Perhaps you've seen them."

The guards pulled up their weapons. They didn't get a chance to use them as Rogers threw his shield and they were left unmoving on the ground. A red light began flashing high overhead, large enough to cover the place with a faint pulsing glow. The intruder alarms were louder than she had expected. Natasha didn't bother looking to Rogers for instruction to break away from their little party. It had been decided that her specific objective was to find Clint and Tony; her team's objective was to subdue and distract.

She wasn't concerned with the armed guards that started to pour out of the buildings along the hangar's sides, like a swarm of ants drawn from their nest. One fired a weapon that pulsed yellow, and the beam that hit Thor sent him flying backwards through the maw he had just created.

She was a bit surprised by the number of people present; the resistance was admittedly more than Natasha had been expecting. More than any of them had been expecting, but she had a lot of anger to work through. A few days' worth actually, so when she moved in on her first target, the smile on her face was perhaps more feral than she generally liked to display.

She was getting her partner and Tony back, and these bodies were in her way.

It was an entire base of well-trained and well-armed mercenaries with a few scientist-looking types in mechanized outfits. It was simple for Steve to spot where the armour had been influenced by Tony's suit, and they were destructive in a variety of ways. It was more like a mini-army really, in an absolutely massive hangar that might have hosted a squadron of blimps back in his day. How they couldn't see this structure from the outside was boggling, but not a concern. For now he was concentrating on not being overwhelmed by the flood of defenders. With Thor and Rhodes at his back they were doing well, though some of the weapon's sure packed a wallop, as he could attest to from where one powerful pulse had just slammed him into the ground.

Steve pushed up off the floor, and took a steadying breath as the ribs and muscles in his torso burned. His body quickly knit itself back together as he took in the distance he had been thrown by the weapons blast. He just avoided another volley from the weapon's yellow beam, and scanned the area to see where they were coming from.

"War Machine, they have snipers on the walls," he called out, and heard more than saw Rhodes take to the air from a distance behind him.

"Got it," the soldier's clipped voice carried through their comm, and Steve nodded to himself, looking for his next target to parry and subdue. A bullet whizzed by his ear, not close enough to burn but definitely close enough to be a serious threat. He whipped around to see a guard aiming at him and threw up his shield as he fired. The beam hit the shield and ricocheted right back at the soldier, taking him out of the battle. Usually, in a fight like this, Steve wouldn't have had to worry about someone sneaking up on him. Usually one of his two missing teammates would have already removed the threat or warned him about it. Steve was getting sloppy.

Also, he was tired of this fight. He wanted his friends back and to know they were okay.

They had _better_ be okay. Clint was just a kid right now and if they hurt him-

A loud boom shattered the air. Thor flew by him in a blur, crashing through one of the corrugated buildings that lined the long walls. Steve looked back to where Thor had been moments before, and took note of the three large black tanks that had been introduced to the fight. Thor stumbled out of the building, blood dripping from his nose.

"For that you shall taste my fury!" he cried, his hammer picking up speed as he twirled it.

At the far end of the room, Hulk roared.

That was unexpected, as Banner and Sitwell were supposed to be the back-up and not a part of the actual fight. He guessed Hulk disagreed with that plan.

All the remaining enemies that Steve could see, however, seemed to lose interest in anything but running away. In the distance Steve watched three men scramble from one of the tanks, while the two remaining machines' black turrets were twisting around to try and get a bead on Hulk. Those men should have run too, if the thundering footsteps Steve could feel vibrating through the ground were anything to go by. In the distance Thor stopped twirling his hammer.

"WHERE IS BIRDIE!" Hulk roared, and leapt into the air as the first tank fired.

A massive explosion from the closest building at his back stole his attention. He was close enough that the heat and concussive force knocked him back a few steps. Something sharp sliced into his thigh. Like a shadow Natasha appeared through the smoke, her arm pointed at Steve and she fired a bite from the weapon wrapped around her wrist. Steve heard someone fall behind him. He did a quick check to make sure the guard was staying down, before he ran to join her among the smoldering ruin of a wall.

There was a cough from inside, followed by a few more, and then Tony himself stumbled through the missing wall, wild eyed and covered in smoke residue. The genius spotted Natasha instantly, and then Steve, and he didn't look at all surprised to see them.

"And _that_ , lady and gentleman, is what you get when you think invisible keypads will stop me!" He jabbed a finger at the domed structure that was continuing to crack along the ceiling and began crumbling slowly inwards.

"WHERE!" Hulk bellowed in the distance and Tony was momentarily ignored as they turned to watch Hulk pick up an entire tank like it was a big rock. He hoisted it over his head and smashed it on top of the one remaining tank. "IS!" He lifted the now malformed vehicle over his head and slammed it back down. "BIRDIE!" He moved to pick it up again, but the second tank had become entangled with the first, making it awkward to lift. Hulk bellowed and changed tactics. With an immense twist, he swung them both to the side instead, hurling them through the air like an Olympic hammer throw.

The tanks smashed through the structure's wall a good twenty meters up, and the light of dawn beamed through the hole that was left. The silence left in the wake of such violence was disconcerting. Hulk huffed angrily and looked around for his next target.

"Where is Clint?" Natasha asked, no inflection in her tone and Steve looked back to find Tony's eyes widening in something that was awfully close to panic for the generally calm man.

"The asshole _ran away_ ," he hissed and twisted to gaze at the building he had just blasted out of, tracking a path Steve couldn't follow with his eyes. "He locked me in and ran."

"Why would he try-" Steve started and Tony flapped an impatient hand at him, tilting his face to scan the ceiling struts.

"It's a long story," he growled. "Cliff notes: he's an adult now and doesn't think coming back with us is a party he should receive an invitation to. I think he's climbing the beams, can you see him? We need to find him, _now_."

"Is he injured?" Natasha asked as she scanned the distant ceiling intently and Steve kept an eye on the ground in case one of the enemy combatants hadn't retreated at the sight of Hulk.

"Yes," Tony responded curtly. "He's having some major growing pains. Like, 'full body spasm loss of grip on the very high beams he's probably climbing' pains. That's on top of possible injuries from fighting. Also, did I mention what a little shit he is, yet? Because that needs to be noted."

"We have Stark." Steve tapped his comm system to give the update. "He's fine. Barton is AWOL in the rafters. Be advised he is currently injured, defensive, and most likely armed. We need his location."

"Acknowledged, scanning. Might take a minute, is there an area to focus on?" Rhodes asked as Hulk let out a frustrated yell and settled his angry green gaze on them, clearly awaiting instruction.

"How long has he been climbing?" Natasha asked.

"Five minutes max, and that timeframe includes getting to the wall," Tony urgently supplied, anxiety leaking into his words.

"He'll be approaching the center of the structure," she supplied, and Steve looked up to the distant center in surprise.

"In five minutes?" Rhodes asked skeptically, "that's a hell of a distance to cover with potential injuries."

"Yes," Natasha agreed, her words clipped, and began running on light feet back towards the middle of the building. Steve followed and heard Tony scrambling to keep up with them. He couldn't normally, but Steve adjusted his pace to run beside Tony, because he was still unclear how injured Tony was having spotted the bandage on his forehead, and the last thing Steve wanted was to leave him alone. Thor appeared on Tony's other side, his cape billowing out behind him as he ran. His eyes scanned the ceiling with no concern for the debris that lay in his path, which didn't seem to hinder the god's movement.

"Got him," Rhodes declared abruptly and he flashed in the distance as he began to approach Clint, his suit pulsing red under the emergency lights. Something uneasy flared in Steve's gut.

"Do not approach!" Natasha snapped from ahead of them, but the sharp crack of a gun once, twice, chased her words and Rhodes swore loudly. In the distance Steve could see something smoking on his suit, and he was losing altitude.

"What's happening?" Tony demanded and picked up the pace, flat out sprinting now towards the middle of the hangar. Another thirty seconds at this pace and they should be there.

"What's happening is that your sniper just shot me!" Rhodes yelled over his radio, but while he could clearly hear Tony even from this distance, Tony couldn't hear him.

"Are you hurt?" Steve demanded.

"Just my pride, and my suit. Navigation is fried, I can't maintain flight like this. I'm going to land."

"Shit shit shit!" Tony yelled sharply beside Steve, and he felt cold with alarm as he looked up to see what had captured Tony's attention. In white clothes, Clint was easy to spot dangling from one of the crisscrossing metal beams over the massive space.

"Thor!" Steve snapped sharply. Thor was already prepared to launch, the whine of Mjolinor whirled in the air. They were close to the middle of the hangar, but closer to the opposite wall-

Clint lost his grip, and his body seemed to clench in on itself despite the gravity pulling at him. He fell as Thor took off.

Hulk bellowed.

His roar was loud enough to shake the air around them, and Steve watched as his teammate's massive green bulk wrapped around Clint three stories from the ground. Thor just managed to swerve out of the way from where he'd been about to catch Clint himself, but the mid air twist sent him crashing into what used to be a structure and was now a pile of collapsed metal walls and crumbled beams.

Hulk landed hard on his back. Steve watched with his heart in his throat, the scene bringing forth the visceral memory of Hulk catching Tony the same way during the Chitauri invasion. Hulk didn't slide far though. The cement ground gave way to his massive bulk with a heaving crack and an eruption of dust. In the distance Steve could see Thor climbing from his pile of wreckage, and beside him Tony was wheezing and far paler than Steve was comfortable with.

Natasha had nearly been crushed herself by their falling teammates, and now she stood with her feet braced and fists clenched, peering through the dust that shrouded her. She thrust an arm out as they joined her, swinging it into Tony's chest and preventing him from tripping over the uneven ground.

"I need a sitrep, Captain," Sitwell, until now their silent back-up, requested calmly. Right.

"Stark is secure, Hulk has Barton; we're waiting for confirmation on his status. No direct threats present, remaining hostiles have evacuated. Stand by."

"Acknowledged."

The clunking of Rhodes' suit became louder as he jogged towards them, and when Thor landed beside Steve he radiated heat like a furnace. Steve could see Hulk sitting up, but they were looking at him from the side and he was hunched over protectively.

They waited a moment, and another, and when there was still no movement-

"Hulk?" Tony asked, out of breath from his run. Hulk snorted and turned his head to them, nose scrunched in momentary displeasure, before he turned his body to follow.

"Bird needs to learn to fly," he growled, and Clint, with his back pressed to Hulk's chest like a stuffed toy, squirmed. He had one arm free and he was doing his best to use it to dislodge himself from the unrelenting grip.

" _Put me- down,"_ he choked out and kicked with his legs wildly. Hulk looked highly unimpressed by the maneuver, but Natasha darted forward, quick as a whip, and snatched something from Clint's ankle. The ankle he had been reaching for in the guise of his useless struggles.

She stepped back, tucked the blade under her belt, and watched dispassionately as Clint's struggles ceased. Clint wrapped his free arm over Hulk's forearm and held on. His face was pale, his cheeks bright red from his struggles, blood smeared across his hairline and by his ear.

"Let me go," Clint demanded again, his tone much calmer now, but his eyes were wild. He tried to look above him at Hulk only to have his head knock into his green chin, and he shifted his gaze to take in his surroundings instead. "Please?" he pleaded, looking weary and so young. He sounded tired and… kind of pathetic actually, which hit a person right in the gut. Steve noticed Hulk waver with indecision a moment, and he began to loosen his grip.

"No," Natasha interrupted. Hulk looked at her with annoyance, but apparently decided that today he'd follow her request. He tightened his grip once more and snorted heavily into Clint's dust-riddled hair. Clint recoiled, and in the blink of an eye his tired, innocent look morphed into a frigid glare. One that seemed to promise pain and doom, if Steve was reading it correctly.

"Oh, yeah, like I haven't seen that particular look enough today," Tony muttered darkly beside Steve, but didn't seem concerned with being overheard. The short billionaire did step up beside Natasha though, moving carefully over the damaged floor. He narrowed tired eyes at Clint. "Remember us, Cliffhanger?" he asked. "Avengers? Friends? A short while ago we were cellmates? Ring a bell?" he asked. Clint cut his gaze to Tony before shifting to Natasha, accusation and mistrust clear in every line of his body.

"Should have known you'd double cross me," he said, voice low and rough, and Natasha cocked her head to the side a moment as she considered his words. Steve felt a driving urge to speak up, but he wasn't one hundred percent certain what was going on here. While he assumed it had something to do with the rate of Clint's aging and memory retrieval, he couldn't be sure. He didn't want to risk making it worse.

"Marseille?" she asked softly, which seemed to mean something, because Clint squinted at her accusingly, before he gave a confused shake of his head. He took in their surroundings once again, stared at her, and then his gaze shifted back to Tony.

"Cellmates," he repeated Tony's earlier explanation, and his gaze sharpened. "Are we _still_ in that fucking lab?" he snarled, frustration edging into his words, and Tony glared back at him heatedly.

"No, we're not. The lab is now a non-issue after I had to blow a hole in the wall to get out because you _left me in there_. Alone. To _die_." he declared, a bit too dramatically.

"If I wanted you dead you'd be dead," Clint snapped back. "You were safe," he concluded, and rubbed briefly at his forehead. He took a breath and focused on Natasha once more, which left Tony bristling from beside Steve but at least he held back any further interruptions. "You trust them?" he asked, and Natasha nodded, which confirmed that whatever age he was now he at least knew Natasha. "You trust me?"

"I trust that you remember us from those few weeks when you were young. I trust that you will not harm them. I do not trust that you won't try to run again."

"That's what I like about you, Tasha," he grinned, suddenly charming and pleased, "you say it like it could be true."

"It is what we will make of it." They assessed each other.

"It is messed up that I trust you guys." Clint looked between them, but frowned at Rhodes, clearly not including him in his declaration. "I barely know you." He repeated his frustrated headshake, and seemed to be finished.

"I would have your word," Natasha requested softly, and Clint's sudden humour disappeared. "You will not run."

"Like my word means anything," he snarled.

"It means everything. Stop being insulting."

He held her look for a long moment, tension heavy in the air, before he closed his eyes and took several long breaths. Hulk was looking at something in the distance. Rhodes shifted his right arm up, pointed it in the same direction and fired. A moment later Steve saw a man fall from where he had been hiding on top of a large stack of crates. A rifle tumbled down after. They were too far away to hear his landing.

"You have my word. Will you let me go now? Seriously, I am not a teddy bear," Clint wriggled to make his point and Hulk, apparently having had enough, unceremoniously dropped him. The archer stumbled a few steps, but Tony was beside him in an instant, hand on his arm to steady him and apparently not even thinking twice about physically approaching a confused, world-renowned assassin. Even Steve took precautions when approaching Clint in times of stress.

"Learn how to walk," Tony grumped, and ignored the tensing of Clint's entire posture at the contact. Everyone watched quietly as Tony visually inspected Clint.

Then he yanked him into a hug.

Natasha dropped back on one foot, prepared to dive in to prevent what was bound to be Tony's death. Rhodes made a startled sound from beside her, a bewildered look on his exposed features. Clint…was clearly startled, but after a moment and some words from Tony that Steve couldn't hear, he relaxed and hesitantly returned the embrace, clapping Tony on the back. It didn't last long and Tony broke away first, looking slightly awkward but not enough to stop his next course of action; which was to very deliberately wipe the dust off Clint's shoulders. Clint's lips pressed together and he looked hard at Tony, but clearly didn't know what to say. Tony seemed happy to not elaborate. The archer's brow was furrowed, and he shifted his focus to meet Natasha's stare.

Steve didn't think anyone was prepared for how his face contorted into a grimace of agony as his knees buckled beneath him. Except Tony, who grabbed him and controlled his collapse to the unforgiving ground. Clint didn't say anything, but he curled in on himself and breathed harshly through his nose, nostrils flaring like a bull's. Tony filled the silence for him with a lot of words too vulgar to repeat.

"What is this?" Natasha demanded, body tensed and her gaze darted around for the threat they might have missed. Steve was alert as well, but he couldn't spot the incoming attack.

"Growing pains," Tony explained darkly from where he hunched over Clint, unconcerned for their peripheral safety. "The fuckers did some kind of procedure on him and now he's suffering rapid onset regrowth." Steve stopped searching the surrounding area and tried to determine how he could help. The archer recovered before Steve could move to act, batting Tony's hand away, though he did it slowly and with care. He took a couple steadying breaths and looked up at them again, the pain lines around his eyes and mouth still easy for Steve to spot on his dust covered skin.

"SHIELD," Clint uttered with a familiar caution that Steve recognized from both the assassin's adolescent and adult self. The one that was untrusting and hopefully optimistic, but trying not to let others see it.

"Yes," Sitwell agreed from behind them as Clint pushed to his feet, slightly shaky but not letting Tony support him anymore. Steve turned to find their liaison in his familiar black suit, well armed and as visibly pleased as he ever seemed. Sitwell looked pointedly around them at the mostly demolished structures that now littered the place. He glanced at the unmoving or too injured to leave mercenaries and scientists, up at the ceiling that looked so far away, to the hole in the distant wall, and ending at the single remaining tank…that had been pounded about three feet deep in the concrete and was slightly U shaped.

"Well," their handler looked at Clint briefly, and then at Steve. "This place wasn't on the original blueprints." No, it hadn't been. Nor had it been visible from the outside, which meant there was probably some kind of cloaking doohickey outside that Tony would want to look at later. "We have crews tracking down the last of the groups that fled. They still have some pretty hefty weapons. Support would be appreciated." Steve nodded, feeling a little uneasy leaving his teammates after trying to find them for so long, but even more uneasy with the thought of an agent getting hit with one of those weapons. Sitwell seemed satisfied with his response. "Hold off on pursuit until we're back on the quinjet first. I'm not taking any more chances now that we have these two back." Sitwell eyed Clint. "Barton, you functional?"

"I'm fine, Agent," he confirmed gruffly, but from where Steve was standing he looked washed out in his odd white clothes, sickly and thinner than Steve had expected to see him in his young twenties. Unsteady. Sitwell, always sharp on the uptake, caught on to the fact that Barton wasn't…fully recovered yet, and narrowed his eyes.

"You going to give us problems?" he asked, a hint of dark amusement in his tone, alongside expectation. Clint smirked, and rolled his shoulders.

"SHIELD, maybe," he agreed, "but not this group in general. At least not right now."

"Touching," Tony muttered, rubbing at his head. His eyes were scrunched in that way that meant he probably had a doozy of a headache.

"What can I say, repetitive forced interaction over the years hasn't made me want to maim you on sight," Clint assured dryly.

"A rarity, I'm sure," Sitwell acknowledged while Natasha continued to study Clint until he looked at her and his shoulders relaxed an inch. She frowned with a little less intensity after that.

"We shall escort you, and then aid in the apprehension of these vile people," Thor announced, unnecessarily, but it got the ball rolling and Steve was more than ready to get his team back behind secure walls so they could figure out what the hell had been done to them now. With the way Tony kept looking over Clint, trying to appear unconcerned, and with Clint suddenly not being a teenager anymore, there was bound to be more trauma to add to both their life experiences.

After Tony had been assured that Happy was not only alive but also okay, and ensuring that Pepper was safe back at the tower, Tony finally started to relax. Bruce had come back to them as the quinjet (which had been flown through the hole Hulk had made) had landed. He was dressed in his spare slacks and button up, and was trying to give Clint a physical assessment as they flew back to the Tower. Clint wasn't being a bad patient per se, but he wasn't very interested in having other people's hands on him at the moment. It was a development that raised the tension in everyone present, but not enough to foul the general relief Tony felt. It was probably a good thing Steve and Thor had remained behind for clean up, because the jet was already feeling a little closed in with their small remaining group.

"Rhodey," Tony looked his oldest friend over as Rhodey slowly removed the suit from his body, casual as you please, in the back of the jet. He wasn't surprised to see Rhodey had put himself on the rescue team, and he certainly wouldn't admit that it was comforting to see him, even if he was giving Tony a mild stink-eye at the moment. "Thought I told you to take better care of your suit," Tony groused as he leaned back on his bench seat. The stiff cushion at his back felt like a plush downy mattress after the last few days of accommodation.

"Funny," Rhodey pulled his second leg from the silver boot, "I thought you told me bullets couldn't damage it."

"Shouldn't be _able_ to," Tony corrected, "except for one spot-" he trailed off and frowned, and then looked at Clint who was letting Bruce take blood from an outstretched arm. Clint was pretending that he wasn't paying attention to everything going on around him, including Natasha running solo in the pilot seat. "Barton, how the hell did you know where to shoot Rhodey to knock him out of the sky?" So Tony was a little slow on the uptake right now, he was tired.

Clint rolled his head in faux-laziness to eye Tony.

"Lucky shot." His smirk bordered on a sneer, and Tony couldn't help snapping his fingers and pointing at the archer with irritation.

"Yeah, I've pretty much seen you try to bullshit your way through life since you were ten, that is not going to work on me anymore," he narrowed his eyes and Clint shrugged. Bruce huffed at him and carefully removed the needle from the archer's arm, pressing a cotton swab onto it.

"I'm sorry," Bruce shook his head sincerely, "but I can't give you anything for the pain until we can confirm what's in your system."

"Sure," Clint agreed and then answered Tony's question, like being denied relief was par for the course. "You were going over the schematics for upgrades on his suit while I was in the lab with you," Clint explained. "Not my problem if you didn't think I was listening," he said, going for snappish and coming across as uneasy.

Tony blinked at him as Clint rose, still far too pale and unsteady for anyone's taste, and slunk away to the co-pilot's seat. As soon as he collapsed into it he began flipping through controls and poking at buttons that Tony was pretty sure he wasn't trained on yet. Since Natasha didn't break his hand or ask him to cease and desist. Tony tentatively concluded that they weren't going to crash and burn as a spectacular encore to the last few weeks. Tony shared an incredulous look with Bruce, who gazed back with his patented 'I'm thinking profound and shrewd thoughts' face.

"What am I missing?" Rhodey asked, more subtle than usual and Tony looked back to see that he'd donned his street clothes and was sliding onto the cushions beside him.

"Technically," Tony drawled, "Clint was in the room when I was going through a stress assessment on your suit." He looked back at Bruce, because Bruce would get this. He would _totally_ get why this was a big deal. "But he was around fourteen years old at the time, and while it was less than a week ago for us-"

"It must be about ten years ago for Clint, physically and mentally if I'm understanding how his body and mind are adapting to his regrowth correctly," Bruce finished.

"Remembering a brief detail like that after all this time, let alone comprehending it in the first place… at that age…he has been holding out on us, that little shit!" Tony exclaimed and glared up at the front, where Clint was or was not paying attention to them while he probably tried to orchestrate a crash landing to try and run away again. Or something.

"Octa-roomba spies," Bruce agreed solicitously, and Tony sighed. He'd thought the cleaning bots had been getting underfoot a little too much lately, and now he'd need to get the whole story from Bruce later. They'd always known Clint was smart, because he had to have a higher than average intelligence to pull off some of the operations he had and utilize the technology he needed. Also, he was a part of their team. This, though, _this_ was something else entirely and Tony was beginning to get that maybe he and Bruce were going to have to have a sit down with Clint and figure out exactly _how much_ he knew. Or saw. Or learned and comprehended by listening to and watching Tony work.

"ETA twenty minutes," Natasha announced and Tony nodded. His head hurt too much to think about this now. Clint was safe, he was safe, the quinjet's generally uninviting bench seats felt like a slice of heaven beneath his exhausted, aching body, and Rhodey was sitting close enough that Tony was getting a small hit of residual body heat. There was nothing to worry about.

"Wake me when we land, honey," he smirked at his friend. He leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes.

Clint silently sat next to Natasha in the cockpit on the last stretch of the flight home, or back to the Tower, or whatever the place was supposed to be to him. His body felt…it felt everything. He felt like his bones were being jammed together and his muscles were stretched too loose over them, hanging and sloppy. He struggled for his fingers to bend, his joints to remember that they weren't spurred bits of stone that grated with every movement instead of the easy slide he knew it should be.

It was fucked up and it hurt and he was trying, very hard, to not come apart at the seams. He refused to have a breakdown in front of Natasha. In front of these people he had distant memories of, that he knew so much about but hadn't spent much time with. It was a near thing though, and he suspected that Tasha had an inkling of what he was suffering through, otherwise she would have probably made him stop poking at the jet controls. She was quick enough to compensate for anything he set off, and she didn't point out how slowly he was moving.

It was fucking surreal.

He stared out the window, at the bright blue that surrounded them and the puffy white clouds that cast patchy shade on the ground below.

He remembered his first time flying, when he had been eighteen and leaving the States. His legs had barely healed from some bad breaks. He'd ached from sitting and standing and moving and resting all the time. The economy seats made him feel penned in. The woman who sat next to him kept casting concerned looks at him but never asked if he was okay. He had plastic knives tucked into his ankle holsters, and a contact for weapons he had already arranged when he landed. His first job overseas. He hadn't been sure if he would ever come back to the North American continent.

He remembered his first time flying, when he had been fourteen and SHIELD didn't know what they wanted to do with him yet; on a ship that was more like a small town, that carried planes and people and had more than one spot where you could go and get free food any time you wanted. Where everyone seemed to carry guns or computers or tools, and wore uniforms or suits or pocket protectors, and didn't try to hurt him.

He remembered his second time flying when he was barely nineteen. He'd been sent to collect a boy: eight years old, the son of a disgustingly rich politician who wanted the child back before authorities knew he was missing. The father did not care how many people, innocent or not, that Clint had to kill to get his son back. A stray bullet had nicked his pilot as Clint had dragged the boy, kicking and crying, onto the helicopter. The gruff pilot had sat in the co-pilot chair and directed Clint step by step on what to do. Clint learned how to fly a UH-72A Lakota light utility helicopter. He never lost the skill, even though he never flew another one like it.

He remembered his second time flying, when Natasha had found him on SHIELD's helicarrier and the Avengers had taken him off that crowded ship without permission. The jet had been so small, and it had been so _cool_. He had watched Captain America fly it, he had asked questions and learned. By the time they landed Clint had been pretty confident he could figure out how to fly it if he needed to. Clint had been an idiot as a kid.

He had too many first times in his head now.

He had two timelines now.

He had a life with these people who called themselves his friends. His teammates. Who apparently cared about his general well being more than as a means to an end; more than as a tool. These people he remembered so clearly as a kid. The ones who fed him, gave him an actual bed to sleep on (an entire room), and clothes that had been too new. The ones that never raised a hand to hurt him, or even threaten to hurt him no matter what he did to test them. They gave, and they never took.

And he had the timeline where he didn't have them. Where he didn't have anyone once his brother was gone.

He leaned back in his seat and resisted pulling his knees into his chest. Usually it was as easy to do as breathing, but right now he didn't know if he could even get one foot on the seat he was in. He pretended not to watch Natasha out of the corner of his eye. He knew her. He knew her now from both his lives. From all his lives? How many did he even have anymore? It had been so easy to keep things straight when he was a kid, to keep his realities separate and defined. Was that last week or this week?

He remembered her from his childhood; reading with him on the tall window ledge at Tony's Tower, and exercising in the massive gym, and how she'd practiced throwing knives with him. He remembered her patience, and her silence, and her generally dangerous aura. It took a while not to fear her (to fear any of them), but he had started believing that maybe he never had to in the first place. But when he'd met her as an adult, which he knew was technically the first time he'd _really_ met her (he _knew_ that, damn it), he had not known her. He had not known her and they had fought. They had fought like enemies, because they had been, and it had been bad. And then they had had to run and fight together to survive their other enemies, and in the end they just didn't want to kill each other anymore. They had been so tired.

Her hair had been brown when they had first met. But it had been scarlet when they first met.

Fuck.

"It will level out," her voice cut through the silence that had remained unbroken since he'd sat, and he rolled his head to stare at her. She'd given him permission to stare at her now, he thinks. He couldn't figure out how to respond, and she turned away from the horizon that stretched out before them, stretched wide like his flesh, and looked him over. His eyes might fall out if wasn't careful. He needed to remember to blink and hold them in. He needed his eyes.

He couldn't help that his breathing was a bit choppy, but he was trying to control it. He was always trying to control it.

"You're in overload," she said softly and he focused on her words, because they were here in the now, and that's where he wanted to be. "Your mind is trying to process too many years in too short a time. You will get better."

"Not sure that was ever an option, Tasha," he managed to push the words out, and they sounded far calmer than he felt. They sounded far too rational and unbroken and too cynical.

"It's always an option, if you let it be," she replied, and looked back to her controls. She had red and she had brown hair. He knew about SHIELD because he had worked for them when he had been a kid, which was when he should have been grown, and because they had hunted him and recruited him not too long ago. But it _had_ been long ago.

He knew Phil. Because Phil had convinced Natasha and Clint to join SHIELD together. He should be here now. He had been in a picture when Clint had been a kid; Clint remembered finding it in his room (the room he owned now and didn't have yet). Phil had been dead then, and he was dead now, but he should be alive because Clint had spoken with him two hours ago. His two realities were being crushed together, the edges were too blurry.

Clint stared at the horizon and refused to forget how to breathe.

"It will level out," he muttered, lowly and desperately and to himself. Natasha reached out and wrapped strong fingers around his wrist. He couldn't convince his hand to let go of the armrest to hold onto her in return.

He kind of wanted to go back to Tony and curl up beside him. Right now he knew Natasha best, but he felt like he had known Tony all his life.

Jesus.

It will level out.


	13. Epilogue

It took one day to return to his proper age and level out, and a second day to mostly recover. He slept through the majority of his cognitive reframing and final growth. It didn't make some aspects of his reality any clearer once he woke up, but he wasn't thrown into a tailspin trying to connect his two pasts, so that was something.

His hair was still damp when he emerged from his apartment, and he nearly took a header into the plush carpet of the hallway as he barely avoided tripping over the objects at his feet. Braced against his door he looked down at the three cleaning robots that had apparently amassed outside his rooms. He blinked.

"They missed you," Natasha said, amusement tickling her tone and Clint looked across the hall to where she was silently closing her own door. She always timed her entrances well.

"Yeah," Clint agreed, though he was a bit uncertain about the whole scenario as one of them gently nudged against his shoe. He nudged back. "Who wouldn't?" She gave him a measured look, and then moved away down the hall. He carefully stepped over his apparent non-sentient fan club and caught up to her. His body still hurt, but the pain was ignorable now. It was like muscles recovering from a heavy, really heavy, workout. He heard the very faint whir of machinery as the bots scuttled after them. "Should I be concerned about this?" he asked, looking over his shoulder at them suspiciously.

"Depends on what you want to focus on: the fact that Tony's bots took a shine to you because you began repairing them every time one came close to you as a teen, or the fact that Tony and Bruce are now aware that you taught yourself how to repair them because you watched Tony do it once from halfway across his lab. Then you turned them into spies, and used them against Tony to go see your brother."

Clint was quiet as he took that in.

"Shit," he muttered and rubbed at the back of his neck. He remembered them now. The bots had been pushed to the back of his mind so other things, like his visit to his brother, and how he was basically responsible for Tony getting caught by the Council member, and that time he'd _kicked Steve down the stairs_ , could be focused on.

"They were bound to figure out that you know something about dielectric breakdown strength and the difference between a soldering iron and TIG welder eventually," she mocked, albeit gently, and he couldn't help a little grimace, which of course she saw. "So you're smart and they figured it out. Get over it."

"Is this the part where I accuse you of being the kettle?"

"I'm just saying the cat's out of the bag now, so you might as well start working with them instead of watching from a distance," she offered. "Also, I highly doubt Stark is going to let the discovery of your hidden talents go. I overheard he and Bruce discussing your name, Mensa, and eye exams in the same sentence." Clint shook his head and didn't groan in despair. He'd just ante up and tell them he had an extra cone in his eye that allowed him to see about a million more colours than the average person. He'd never imagined it would come in handy with keypads that used colours that were 'invisible' to the average person, and it's not like he'd ever tried to hide the fact that he had excellent vision. They just didn't ask the right questions and he'd never seen the point in expounding his talents; keeping some things to himself was the only advantage he had.

Also, he didn't do tests and he wasn't _that_ smart.

Natasha walked alongside him and seemed to be quietly enjoying his turmoil. He side eyed her, observing the tired discolouring under her normally polished eyes and the press of her lips that signaled stress; at least it did to Clint, but he knew her better than she allowed most. She ignored the rather blatant assessment he was making, and he stepped closer to her, pressing his arm against hers, reassuring her that he was okay. For now at least. He could only imagine how he would have felt if their positions had been reversed these last few weeks, and he was more grateful than he would express to her.

"You didn't put all my weapons back in my room," he accused, and the humour rising between them was real and easy, and some tension that still framed her movements slipped away.

"Finders keepers."

" _Now_ who's the kid?" He whined, unable to stop a small smile.

"If you're going to leave your toys where anyone can find them, then you don't deserve to keep them," her eyebrow lifted slightly and she slowed as they approached their destination. Clint laughed. She'd hidden them somewhere, and her challenge was clear: find them yourself, if you can.

"What are the search parameters?" He asked, not bothering to watch her too closely as she wouldn't give him any hints with body language. "Residential levels?" She did not answer him. "The whole Tower?" He said as they reached the conference room doors. She cast him an unimpressed look as she stepped through alongside him.

"And the New York office? Seriously?" He said, and couldn't hide the anticipation of the search. It would be tough game, and it would be good for them both: distraction, training, and fun. Better still, it would be a fluid challenge, as she would be continuously changing the hiding spots as she saw fit.

Getting their respective coffee and tea, he sat next to her for the final debrief of this entire clusterfuck of a few weeks. He wanted to get this meeting over with, and it wasn't like there were any more surprises in store at this point. Now, however, he had the distraction of his upcoming search to get him through the next few hours, and the knowledge that that was exactly what his friend had intended.

Jasper could see the exhaustion still etched in the faces of his team as they joined him in the conference room. He'd returned just an hour ago from the facility that had been holding Tony and Clint, and he knew how they felt. The catnaps he'd caught between managing the hangar's investigation, rounding up the facility's retreating minions, and keeping the Avengers and SHIELD up to date had not been enough. The entire experience had been…taxing. The first thing he had done upon arriving back at the tower was detour to the kitchen to get _his_ coffee mug, and then he had used most of a pot of coffee to fill it, which had had Steve raising a concerned eyebrow. Just for that Jasper didn't make a fresh pot, which had the Captain shaking his head at him with mild amusement and a hint of understanding. The heat felt wonderful under his fingers.

He watched as the Avengers, sans Thor who had to return to Asgard, gathered around the table and he understood their weariness. Tony and Bruce had spent the better part of two days conferencing with SHIELD about everything they had found in ex-council member Victoria Joffé's secret lab; between taking watch over Clint as the archer had recovered. Steve had barely budged from Clint's apartment until a few hours ago, when it was certain that he was no longer suffering further ill effects. Natasha had been…interviewing Victoria Joffé and her assistant. She had returned to the Tower late the evening before and, as far as Jasper knew, slept for the first time since Clint and Tony had been taken.

She looked absolutely unaffected by any of this.

Clint looked like he needed another week of sleep.

What Jasper and SHIELD had concluded about the entire ordeal was this:

Tony had been the initial target. Victoria Joffé had gotten her hands on some tech that, with ingenuity and no doubt a boatload of luck, turned into the de-aging weapon. She had initially intended to de-age Stark to a point where either the Council could legally sweep in and take custody of him, or she could secret him away without anyone the wiser. She didn't want Stark industries; she wanted Tony at an age where he could be molded into trusting her and her people, so that he would eventually be loyal to her. She wanted a genius of his calibre at her beck and call, without Tony being aware of foul play.

It was speculated that one of her less intelligent and eager-to-please 'employees' had seen an opportunity to get the attack underway early, which had caused _problems_ in Joffé's plan.

Clint had _not_ been a part of this plan.

It was uncertain whether Clint had seen the attack and placed himself between it and Tony, or if he had gotten in the way without knowing. Clint stated he couldn't remember. If anybody could tell Clint was lying, they weren't calling him on it. Either way nobody was pushing it, because in the grand scheme it didn't really matter whether Clint intentionally took the hit; only that he had taken it.

If Tony had been hit Jasper was pretty sure his lungs and heart would have been irreparably damaged because of his arc-reactor. At the moment neither Tony nor Clint were dead. It was a definite win.

The Council was launching a full investigation into everything Joffé had been involved in. If the pleased look on Hill's face was anything to go by he was pretty sure that SHIELD would be utilizing the Council's mess to their full advantage. He foresaw planting a few moles of their own in there during the restructuring.

Basically this left one last piece of information to impart, which gave Jasper a warm feeling of glee as he glanced around his gathered team; because he was an asshole and unashamed of it. But maybe also because it was something that SHIELD had been made aware of when Tony and Clint had been taken, and he doubted Tony would share now that Clint had grown up again. This was something that should be shared, probably privately which is what made Jasper a bit of a dick, but he was A-Okay with that.

He swivelled in his seat and focused his gaze on the agonizingly tired looking archer, who remained completely unmoved from his deep slouch on the other side of the round table. He did deign to raise an eyebrow in question though, which was all the curiosity Jasper needed.

"Our last order of business is a celebration. Congratulations, Barton," Jasper announced evenly, "you've been adopted."

There was a moment where Clint didn't seem to really get was Jasper was saying, staring blankly back at him the way he was, but only a moment; Clint had never been slow on the uptake.

"A dream come true, sir," the marksman smirked somewhat blandly, and cocked his head. "Is SHIELD the lucky parental unit?"

"No," Jasper shook his head. "The custody battle was hard fought but in the end it was deemed that the helicarrier was an unstable living environment for a developing youth with a history of violent tendencies, lack of self-preservation, and no fear of heights." Sitwell was entirely pleased with his delivery. Judging by the various looks he was receiving it had just the edge he had wanted. "Felicitations, Clint: you're a Stark now." Never in his life had Jasper thought he'd utter those words. It was a special kind of satisfying.

Clint, for his part, didn't let any of the shock Jasper knew he was feeling show; he looked across the table to where Tony was watching him expectantly. Smugly. Too arrogantly, Jasper thought, which meant he was deflecting. Hiding. Stark was easier to read than he probably hoped. One day Sitwell would also let it slip how ruthlessly Pepper Pots had cut through red tape (and no doubt leaned on the right influential individuals) to make this happen, at Tony's request.

"So," Clint drawled and leaned back in his chair as his unnerving blue gaze focused on the billionaire, "is it too soon to discuss my inheritance?"

Jasper swallowed the last dregs of his long-cold coffee so he could hide his satisfied smile.

They would be fine.

Clint cooked dinner for the team the next night. After he'd had about twenty-two more hours of sleep and a training session with Tasha to reacquaint himself with his up-to-date body. He pulled out all the stops with a full steak dinner that included mushrooms, salad, and baked potatoes with the works.

He had hoped that the team would get that he was trying to say thank you, without having to literally say it. He didn't know how to get the words out and not make it sound…less than it was. He wasn't really a man known for sharing and caring, but he'd learned at a young age that he could get his point across with actions instead of words. So he replicated the first meal he had ever had at the tower, and hoped it would be enough.

Judging by the blinding grin on Steve's face when he entered the kitchen, and the quietly appreciative tones of everyone else, he was off to a good start.

If being around them, around people in general, was a bit easier than he remembered it being in the past, well, Clint didn't notice the difference, because it felt like it had always been this way.

Tony stared at the body that lay prone on the couch in his lab, and tried to determine what he should do about it.

Because; this was new. This was different.

Clint Barton did not sleep on Tony's couch. In fact, he had never seen Clint sleep on any of the couches anywhere, ever. He had a brief thought that maybe the guy was ill, and it made him tense and worry before he forcibly reminded himself that Clint was not a teenager anymore, and technically not his responsibility, not anymore…so long as one ignored the whole adoption thing.

But the guy was just lying on the couch with a small fuzzy blanket draped haphazardly across his torso and Dummy resting in silent mode just beyond his head. He looked comfortable, as though letting his guard down like this was normal. It was not normal for Clint.

Tony didn't know what to do.

Then Clint cracked his eyes open, and his gaze was already focused on Tony. It was as disconcerting as ever.

"I wasn't asleep," Clint denied instantly and pushed to sit up. The blanket pooled in his lap and he looked at it, confused. Dummy whirred softly off to their side, pleased.

"Sure you weren't," Tony snorted, but it lacked his usual bite and he really couldn't be bothered by it. Oh, and yep, there it was: that look of cautious wariness that had become so familiar these last few weeks as Clint looked up at him. It only lasted a second, but it was still there; Tony thinks Clint had been better at hiding that look before he'd been turned into a kid, which is why he'd noticed it a lot less before. It irritated him now, but he refrained from comment and moved to his main bench, trying to remember what it was he had come down here to do in the first place.

He heard Clint shifting about, and after a few moments of silence he figured the guy had up and left with his usual ninja stealth. He turned back to check, and nearly startled because Clint was still there, still on his couch. Only now he was just watching Tony.

"So…this isn't awkward at all," Tony decided, and Clint kept watching him with that stare of his. Surprisingly it didn't have the same threatening feel to it that Tony remembered from the past. It lacked intent. Tony returned the look for a moment, and then pulled up a project to keep himself occupied while Clint decided on his next move. Unless he didn't actually have an agenda which; would be different. Maybe he had literally just felt like taking a nap on Tony's chesterfield. It was a pretty excellent couch. Pepper had great taste.

Tony passive-aggressively pulled up the War Machine blueprints and started randomly shuffling the holographic armour around. He contemplated giving it extra arms just because he could, and was in the process of colouring it neon pink when Clint decided that he actually had something to say.

Tony didn't know what he was expecting to hear, because he'd learned not to expect things long ago, but he at least had enough social graces to turn and face Clint when the man let out a slow breath. Clint wasn't looking at him directly anymore, but at one of the cleaning bots that was resting by his feet.

They'd been back at the Tower two weeks now and the things were still following the assassin around like lost puppies. Tony suspected Jarvis had something to do with that, but watching Clint try to avoid stepping on them everywhere he went never got old, so he allowed it to continue.

"My life never changed," Clint finally decided, nudging the bot gently with his toe. "I grew up in the circus, and I was trained for-" here he paused and gave Tony a bruised look, but it was also as steely as ever, " _archery_. When I left I still took the jobs I did; made the choices I did. I still ended up on SHIELD's radar, and I was still…" he drifted off and looked a little disgusted with himself. "I was still alone. It was all the same. My life never changed," he explained and Tony stayed quiet. "Except, now I have these new memories," and here Clint huffed a near silent laugh, and shook his head, before he leaned back into the couch cushions and looked up at the ceiling.

"I have these new memories of being _here_ when I was a kid. It's fucking surreal, because I can differentiate between the two timelines now, you know?" No, Tony would be lying if he said he did, but Clint didn't really want an answer anyway. "I can separate the experiences and understand that they aren't one in the same. But when I look back at the choices I've made, and the things I've done, now I've got this fucking voice in the back of my head saying _if you'd just stayed with them then you wouldn't be caught up in this shit. If you hadn't left you could have been a different person. A_ good _person._ "

Tony stared.

Clint continued.

"And it's not rational, I know its not, but there are these moments in my life that are going to be different forever now, because I can't change my past, and I can't stop thinking that- that if I had never left here when I was a kid than none of the wrong choices I made would have happened. I finally had a fallback plan, somewhere I knew I could go for help, and I still never did. I couldn't." He rubbed a hand through his hair and looked at Tony meeting his eyes. "I guess, what I'm trying to say is thanks, for…not wiping off the dust."

He finished with a little shrug, like it was no big thing that he basically just compared Tony to his family. That he had found his family wanting.

Tony blindly grabbed for his chair, rolled it out from under his desk, and sat down.

Yeah. Okay. Tony could totally handle this.

"You're welcome," he managed, with a sincerity that he rarely made an effort to show, and maybe it was a bit watery, but hey: what do you expect when you get a bomb like that dropped in your proverbial lap? What else is there to say? Clint nodded like he understood him though, and some of the tension that had been holding him in place sort of leached away. This was good, Tony thought, and relaxed a little more himself. They could work with this. "Seriously though," Tony leaned forward in his chair, bracing his elbows on his knees and shook his head at Clint. "What the hell is it with my lab that has you constantly unloading your issues here? Is there something wrong with the common area upstairs? Or Bruce and Steve? Thor has shoulders large enough for Hulk to cry on if you wanted-"

"Shut it, Stark, or I'll give you a few issues of your own," was Clint's rather pitiable rejoinder, but Tony could ignore the lack of creativity in the face of emotional upheaval and all that.

"Please," he scoffed and whirled around to look at his projections, "like you'd do anything that could damage your safe haven, Barton."

"That's Barton-Stark to you," Clint threw back, and if there was a slightly odd tone to his words, well, Tony was very good at not listening to others too closely. People said it was a personal fault of his, but frankly he's always thought it was a virtue.

"Just to be clear, Pepper and I have discussed it and we've decided that you won't have access your trust fund until you grow up. We're concerned that if we spoil you too much you'll develop a poor work ethic."

There was a long pause as Tony waited in anticipation for a response, and when none were forthcoming he turned around to discover that he had been talking to himself. He shook his head, turned back to his work, and smiled.

She paused in her silent crossing through the shared common area, quiet enough that Bruce hadn't noticed her from where he was tucked into the couch, reading. Her gaze moved to the large gas fireplace on the far wall, shadowed and cool when it wasn't working, but ultimately not what had caught her attention. Her eyes drifted over the various framed pictures that rested on the thin mantle above: black and white portrait shots of Peggy Carter and Bucky Barnes, a group shot of the Howling Commandos in full combat gear. Lady Sif and the Warriors three stood out in full colour but slightly awkward poses from another frame, clearly uncertain about the camera pointed at them. Betty Ross, tucked into a small frame in the corner had a secretive smile on her face, clearly unaware that someone was taking her picture.

A new frame had joined the group.

Natasha stared at it, taking in the smiles on Phil and Clint's faces, the genuine twist to her own lips as she sat beside them at the old wooden table, two fingers curled softly around her vodka glass. Phil's red wine was almost finished and Clint's pint had barely been touched, his arm resting casually over the back of Phil's chair. She had her own copy of this of course, but she had never expected to see it out here.

She had never expected that Clint, who hid his treasures with a tenacity that rivaled her own, would ever feel comfortable enough to share this unguarded moment so openly.

Perhaps it was time she brought out a few photos of her own, and in a rare moment of relief Natasha smiled.

**The End.**

**Author note:** I know nothing about technology/physics/psychology/smart things, so take all references to such in this story with a grain of salt. Though I do try to do my research to make it fairly accurate with the aid of the Internet ;)

Interested about the Fourth Eye Cone, aka tetrachromacy? It's real (I maybe tweaked it a bit to include the male gender) and you can read more [Here](http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jul-aug/06-humans-with-super-human-vision#.Uv4xIiiVNUR) and [Here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy)

I started writing this back in…May 2013ish. I wanted to write a kid-Clint fic where he wasn't really young but was still a child…for pretty much all the scenes you read with his teammates and brother. Then I had to add a bit of plot, which is when I wouldn't touch it for a few months at a time and then had to keep re-reading every time I wanted to write (I'm a slow reader).

I also wanted to try a story where Phil's survival/reincarnation/whatever was not known to Clint, Natasha or the team. Initially I started out treating it like a death fic…but then: Marvel fix-it! Yay! Oh boy, Phil/Fury/SHIELD are going to have some serious explaining to do.

This is probably the part where I also point out that this fic is A/U after the Avengers as it does not incorporate…THINGS that have come to light in Captain America's Winter Soldier (or any movie after Avengers really). If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about.

All images in this fic are created (attempted) by me. I'm not sure why anyone would repost/use them, but if you do I only ask that you link back/source me :D

Thank you so much for all your wonderful comments throughout this story!

I hope you enjoyed it! Feedback is love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can also find the images on my [LJ](http://aerlatro.livejournal.com/)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Wiping off the Dust | written by dentalfloss](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12459738) by [Tipsy_Kitty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tipsy_Kitty/pseuds/Tipsy_Kitty)




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